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Mission underway to recover last body from Phuket boat disaster

Mission underway to recover last body from Phuket boat disaster

PHUKET: At 5.45am today Royal Thai Navy vessels HTMS Thong Lang, HTMS Hua Hin and HTMS Panyi departed from the pier at the Cape Panwa to continue with the mission to recover the body of a presumed Chinese tourist stuck under the Phoenix tour boat that sunk off the coast of Phuket last Thursday (July 5).

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By The Phuket News

Thursday 12 July 2018 11:20 AM


 

Joining the mission today are divers from a Royal Thai Navy rescue team, a rescue team from Guangzhou Salvage from China and Kusoldharm rescue workers.

Today’s mission will follow the original action plan to recover the body and will see Navy dive teams go down at twenty minute intervals to survey the wreckage and suck sand from around the boat’s hull.

A second team will them go down and repeat the same procedure.

It is hoped that after this procedure a third team – the Chinese rescue team – will be able to go down and recover the body.

If recovered, the body will immediately be brought back to shore on board one of the Navy vessels.

If today’s mission is successful this will bring the total number of bodies recovered from the Phoenix boast disaster to 47.

The vessel sunk in a storm off Phuket last Thursday with 89 passengers and crew on board, 42 people were saved at the time of the incident.