Seven people were killed and another person was missing after a chartered fishing boat disappeared from view in large waves at the entrance to a harbor near Auckland, New Zealand authorities said.
The boat, Francie, was carrying 11 people when it got into trouble on Saturday afternoon in Kaipara Harbour.
Rescuers managed to pull three survivors from the water, who were taken to a hospital. A search for the missing person was continuing yesterday, police inspector Duncan Hall said.
Photo: AP
Crew members from the boat notified the coast guard that they were attempting to cross a sandbar at the entrance to the harbor at about 2pm, Royal New Zealand Coastguard chief executive Patrick Holmes said.
He said the coast guard raised the alarm one hour later after the boat did not report back and could no longer be reached on its marine radio or by mobile phone.
Other boats in the area reported to the coast guard that they could no longer see the boat, although he was not yet clear if it had sunk. An investigation was under way.
Waves at the sandbar were about 4m high at the time of the accident, Holmes said.
Sandbars are formed by sand building up on the seafloor, something which can happen at harbor entrances where the ocean meets calmer harbor water.
“All sandbar crossings are dangerous. They shift with storms and tides, so the bars are not in exactly the same position,” Holmes said.
“Because it’s a disturbance of the seafloor, the action of the waves becomes distorted and irregular,” he said.
Eyewitnesses told Television New Zealand that rescuers in helicopters plucked the survivors from the water and placed them on a beach, where locals kept them warm until ambulances arrived.
Police said they were still trying to establish what happened to the boat and how its occupants ended up in the harbor, which is about 75km northwest of Auckland.
Hall said that rescuers recovered five bodies from the water soon after the accident. Another two bodies washed ashore at nearby beaches and were found early yesterday.
The Facebook page for Francie Charters says its boat Francie is licensed to carry up to 20 people with two crew members. It shows customers using fishing rods to catch snapper and other fish, and encountering dolphins.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese