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.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS