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Two bodies found in search for capsized ship carrying Indonesians
With hopes that some of the crew members are still alive, the Chinese ambassador to Australia made calls to the authorities in Canberra to intensify the search operation.
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Fishing boat illustration (Shutterstock/Zula Albab)
T
o:p>The Foreign Ministry reported on Friday that two bodies had been found during a search for the crew of a capsized fishing ship that carried 17 Indonesian, 17 Chinese and five Philippine nationals, saying the remains had yet to be identified.
Meanwhile, with hopes that some of the crew members are still alive, the Chinese ambassador to Australia made calls to the authorities in Canberra to intensify the search operation.
“The Foreign Ministry has communicated with the Chinese envoy in Jakarta [and found that] it is true that two bodies, suspected to be crew members of the [capsized] ship, have been found. The bodies have been transported to a ship, and the identification will require more time," Judha Nugraha, the Foreign Ministry’s citizen protection director said on Friday.
On Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry told reporters that the Chinese fishing vessel Lu Peng Yuan Yu 028 had been found by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) upturned in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday.
While it remains unclear why the boat had upturned, an AMSA statement on Thursday said that the weather conditions during the capsizing “were extreme, with the passage of Cyclone Fabian [that saw] 120 km winds and 7-meter seas”.
The capsized vessel was first spotted 5,000 kilometers northwest of Perth and 1,500 kilometers south of Sri Lanka by a cargo ship in the area before prompting a still-ongoing search and rescue operation, now also involving India, which sent reconnaissance planes to aid the mission.
“The Australian AMSA have commenced a search and rescue operation around the area, deploying their assets including an aircraft and a ship. It has also coordinated with the commercial ships sailing around the location,” Judha said on Wednesday.
