SEOUL — Ten people died and an undetermined number of others were missing after a fishing boat capsized off South Korea's southern coast, maritime officials said on Sunday. Three people were rescued and flown to a hospital with injuries that weren't life-threatening, Jeju coast guard officers said on condition of anonymity because of office rules. Dozens of ships searched the area for survivors.
The 9.8-ton boat, Dolphin, lost communication with another boat on Saturday evening and was found Sunday morning north of the resort island of Jeju. A survivor told Yonhap news agency that the boat quickly capsized because of high waves.
The survivor, identified only by the surname Park, awoke to find the captain telling the passengers to get out as the boat filled with water. Park said survivors clung to the boat for more than 10 hours, but some disappeared in the strong waves before rescuers arrived.
It wasn't clear how many were on board, but most were passengers on a fishing trip, not professional fishermen, one of the coast guard officials said.
A document listed 22 expected passengers, but officials have found that at least four of those listed did not actually board the ship. Also, one of the three survivors wasn't among those listed in the document, Jeju's coast guard chief Lee Pyung-hyun said.
More than 40 coast guard, navy and civilian ships searched the nearby waters, Lee said. The boat had left Chuja Island, northwest of Jeju Island, on Saturday evening to return to a southwestern town on the mainland, before losing communication, Lee said. — AP
