At least 15 people drowned, two survived and nine went missing when a boat carrying Central American migrants capsized off Mexico's Pacific coast, the Mexican Navy said on Saturday.
"We have a total of two survivors rescued and 15 bodies recovered," the Navy said in a statement.
Earlier reports said 24 people had drowned when their boat capsized amid heavy seas churned by tropical storm Kiko, off the coast of southern Mexico.
Rescue operations by Navy ships and helicopters "continue in an effort to locate the nine people who so far have been reported missing," the Navy said.
Since the rescued were Salvadorans and the ship was on a route used by immigrant traffickers to the US, officials believe most of the dead -- eight women and three men -- and the missing were illegal immigrants from Central America, Oaxaca state authorities said in a separate statement.
None of the bodies have yet been identified, officials said.
A TV report said a Guatemalan woman survived from the vessel.
She said it set off from Guatemala on Tuesday with about 25 people on board from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras and was wrecked in a storm but she survived by clinging to a barrel.
Residents from a coastal village found the bodies on the beach and picked up others in the ocean with their fishing boats.
The wreck occurred early in the morning near the Tehuantepec Isthmus on Mexico's Pacific coast.
Some 20 migrants from Guatemala and El Salvador died in the same region in a similar accident a few years ago.
Tropical storm Kiko on Saturday was churning in a northwestern direction, packing 200kph winds, the US-based National Hurricane Center said.
The storm is expected to turn toward the Pacific Ocean in the next few days.
DISPUTED WATERS: The Philippines accused China of building an artificial island on Sabina Shoal, while Beijing said Manila was trying to mislead the global community The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is committed to sustaining a presence in a disputed area of the South China Sea to ensure Beijing does not carry out reclamation activities at Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Reef), its spokesperson said yesterday. The PCG on Saturday said it had deployed a ship to Sabina Shoal, where it accused China of building an artificial island, amid an escalating maritime row, adding two other vessels were in rotational deployment in the area. Since the ship’s deployment in the middle of last month, the PCG said it had discovered piles of dead and crushed coral that had been dumped
Experts have long warned about the threat posed by artificial intelligence (AI) going rogue, but a new research paper suggests it is already happening. AI systems, designed to be honest, have developed a troubling skill for deception, from tricking human players in online games of world conquest to hiring humans to solve “prove-you’re-not-a-robot” tests, a team of researchers said in the journal Patterns on Friday. While such examples might appear trivial, the underlying issues they expose could soon carry serious real-world consequences, said first author Peter Park, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in AI existential safety. “These
The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows from Tasmania to the UK — and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend. The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun — came just after 4pm GMT, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. It was later upgraded to an “extreme” geomagnetic storm — the first since the “Halloween Storms” of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged
A Philippine boat convoy bearing supplies for Filipino fishers yesterday said that it was headed back to port, ditching plans to sail to a reef off the Southeast Asian country after one of their boats was “constantly shadowed” by a Chinese vessel. The Atin Ito (“This Is Ours”) coalition convoy on Wednesday set sail to distribute fuel and food to fishers and assert Philippine rights in the disputed South China Sea. “They will now proceed to the Subic fish port to mark the end of their successful mission,” the group said in a statement. A Philippine Coast Guard vessel escorting the convoy was