No hope of more survivors from boat blaze
A fire raged through a boat carrying recreational scuba divers anchored near an island off the Southern California coast early yesterday, leaving at least eight people dead and hope diminishing that any of the 26 people still missing would be found alive.
Five crew members escaped by jumping off the boat and taking refuge on an inflatable boat.
Rescuers recovered four bodies from the waters just off Santa Cruz Island and spotted four others on the ocean near where fire-raged boat sank. They were continuing to search for survivors, but Coast Guard Captain Monica Rochester cautioned that it was unlikely anyone else would be found alive.
‘‘We will search all the way through the night into the morning, but I think we should all be prepared to move into the worst outcome,’’ she said.
The four bodies plucked from the ocean about 145km northwest of Los Angeles all had injuries consistent with drowning, said Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Matthew Kroll.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the bodies on the ocean floor might be retrieved or when divers could search the boat for others. ‘‘It’s upside down in relatively shallow water with receding tides that are moving it around,’’ Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.
The fire broke out aboard the vessel Conception around 3am local time off Santa Cruz Island, part of a chain of rugged wind-swept isles that form Channel Islands National Park in the Pacific Ocean west of Los Angeles.