More than 20 people were feared dead yesterday after a boat carrying about 40 sank in rough seas off northwest Australia during a rescue attempt by a passing merchant ship and fishing vessel.
Australian Defense chief Angus Houston said the unidentified boat capsized and then sank after the LNG Pioneer ship and a Taiwanese fishing craft responded to pleas for help in a remote area off Australia’s Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
It was not confirmed whether the boat was one of dozens of people-smuggling vessels that have headed to Australia this year carrying more than 1,700 asylum-seekers, many of them from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.
“I understand when the first ship got there, this vessel was still intact,” Houston said. “Somehow or other during the process of interaction between the ship and trawler and also the stricken vessel, there’s been a capsize and people ended up in the water.”
Seventeen people were rescued by scrambling aboard life-rafts thrown out by the LNG Pioneer, which was sailing to Western Australia when it diverted course to help the stricken boat.
A maritime safety official said there were “grave concerns” for the missing, while Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that finding more survivors would be difficult.
“Our assets have been deployed, we have coordinated with other vessels in the area. This is a very difficult search environment,” Rudd said.
A surveillance plane was headed to the area, but a rescue ship was about a day’s sail from the site off the tiny Cocos Islands, 2,000km off the Australian coast.
“We obviously have grave concerns about the safety of those who are still in the water, given they’ve been in there for some time now,” a spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said. “The weather conditions aren’t great, not too conducive to a search and rescue.”
The boat started taking on water late on Sunday and issued a distress call, prompting a plea for help by Australian authorities, which was answered by the LNG tanker and the Taiwanese fishing craft.
RSS