Three Mexican fishermen who say they spent nine months adrift on the Pacific Ocean finally reached dry land when the Taiwanese fishing boat that rescued them arrived at a remote island chain halfway around the world from their homeland.
The trio landed on Monday in the Marshall Islands aboard the boat that pulled them from the ocean on Aug. 9, and after a medical checkup were found well enough to return to Mexico by airplane.
They are expected to reach their homeland by Friday, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said.
PHOTO: AFP
Television footage showed the fishermen looking thin but clean-shaven, sometimes smiling and appearing surprising healthy.
"I'm well, very well," said Salvador Ordonez, who answered "of course" when asked if he would go back to sea.
"I've always worked on the sea," the 37-year old Ordonez said.
Asked what happened to two boatmates who they said died during the ordeal, he told the Televisa news network that one, whom they knew only as "Juan" didn't want to eat raw food.
"He vomited ... and after a while he vomited blood, over and over again," Ordonez said. Eventually he and another man died, and the three survivors threw their bodies overboard, Ordonez said.
Jesus Vidana, 27, said the two dead men had hired the other three to make the fishing trip, and denied speculation the five may have set out to pick up drugs at sea, an activity not uncommon on Mexico's Pacific coast, which often serves as a transhipment point to the US.
"That's wrong because we set out to catch sharks," Vidana said.
Ordonez seconded that, saying, "we are shark fishermen."
Police met the fishing vessel at the dock, which was cordoned off to journalists, including a large group of Mexican media.
The three survivors said heavy winds carried them out to sea, where they survived by catching and eating raw fish and drinking rain water. To pass the hours, they claim to have read the Bible and prayed for survival.
The men reportedly asked for sweets on reaching land. They were in good health, though two were suffering from arms and legs left badly swollen from excessive exposure to sun and salt.
Officials from the Foreign Relations Department traveled to the Marshall Islands and will help the fisherman return to Mexico.
Vidana said he, Ordonez, Lucio Rendon and the two other men set off from San Blas, about 660km northwest of Mexico City. However, mechanical problems and adverse winds quickly pushed their 8m boat out to sea.
The group had planned on a short fishing expedition and was carrying only flashlights and a compass at the time they disappeared.
The fishermen have become instant folk heroes in Mexico.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS