Seoul: Nine people died after a fishing boat capsized off South Korea’s southern coast, maritime officials said Sunday.
The 9.8-ton boat, Dolphin, lost communication with another boat on Saturday evening and was found Sunday morning north of the resort island of Jeju.
It wasn’t clear how many were on board, but most were passengers on a fishing trip, not professional fisherman, one of the coast guard officials said.
A document listed 22 expected passengers, but officials have found that at least four of those listed did not actually board the ship. Also, one of the three survivors wasn’t among those listed in the document, Jeju’s coast guard chief Lee Pyung-hyun said.
More than 40 coast guard, navy and civilian ships searched the nearby waters, he said. The boat had left Chuja Island, northwest of Jeju Island, on Saturday evening to return to a south-western town on the mainland, before losing communication.
- AP