Sunday, February 1, 2009


Two Lankans among victims of US boat


The U।S। Coast Guard called off its search Wednesday for at least 12 missing migrants — including two Sri Lankans — in choppy waters off the British Virgin Islands after their flimsy boat collided with a reef and broke apart।


Rescuers said roughly 25 people, most of them Haitians, had been aboard the overloaded boat that was illegally travelling the 100-mile (160-kilometer) passage from the Dutch territory of St. Maarten to the British Virgin Islands. They were apparently island-hopping in hopes of eventually reaching U.S. shores when the boat hit a reef Monday night, pitching passengers into the ocean.
Crews used aircraft and several boats to look for any sign of the missing people — including three children — in white-capped Atlantic waters off Anegada, a sparsely inhabited island of coral and limestone, according to U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Ricardo Castrodad.
Rescuers scoured a vast ocean area covering more than 586 square nautical miles for two days before ending the search, he said। Fishermen reported spotting a corpse and a live person drifting a couple miles off the northernmost island of the wealthy British archipelago, but said they vanished beneath the waves.


DM

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