33 DEAD IN BOAT ACCIDENT OFF THAI ISLAND

Thai authorities on Friday suspended the search for missing tourists who were on a boat that sank during a storm off the southern resort island of Phuket, as the death toll rose to 33, all of them Chinese nationals.

The search for another 23 people still missing will resume at 5 am on Saturday, said Prapan Khanprasang, chief of the Phuket Provincial Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Office.

The death toll jumped after the navy sent divers to enter the wreck of the tour boat, which capsized and sank Thursday evening when it was hit by 5-metre-high waves as it was carrying 105 people, including 93 tourists, 11 crew and one tour guide.

At least 12 of the injured were hospitalised. Another boat also overturned off Phuket during the stormy conditions Thursday afternoon, but all 42 on board were rescued. One fisherman is still missing after being swept from a Thai fishing boat Thursday near Krabi province.

The accidents came as rescuers, also led by Thai navy divers, support 12 boys and their soccer coach stranded nearly two weeks inside a flooded cave in the country’s far north, and try to determine how and when to extract them.

Jin Yilin, consul-general of the Chinese Embassy in Thailand, said a delegation from the Chinese Foreign Ministry is on the way to Thailand. AP

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