HIGH WAVES PREVENT SEARCH FOR BODIES FROM SHIPWRECK

Tanjungpinang, Jan 9 (ANTARA) - Efforts to find the bodies of four crew members of the "Ocean Lark" tugboat that sank in Riau Islands waters on Wednesday were on Saturday cancelled because of risky conditions of the sea.

The Singaporean-flagged Ocean Lark boat sank in the province's Tanjung Berakit waters was carrying an Indonesian crew.
"Today the joint search and rescue team cancelled the diving to find the bodies because the sea waves were very big," the head of the Tanjungpinang Search and Rescue Service, Bambang Subagyo, said here on Saturday.

He said the waves rose to up to four meters high so that the SAR team could not conduct diving to find the bodies of the crew believed to be trapped in the sunken vessel.

"Today the SAR team conducted a search around the scene only," he said.

He said until Saturday evening the number of bodies found totaled seven, two people meanwhile had been saved but four others were still missing out of 13 victims of the incident.

"Not a single body was found today," he said.

All of the victims found dead or alive were taken to Singapore for identification.

Bambang said the Oceam Lark's stern could still be seen sticking out of the sea. He said the evacuation process would be continued until January 12, in accordance with standard search and rescue rules.

"The Tanjungpinang SAR service and Singapore's Rescure Coordination Center have agreed to carry out the search efforts until January 20," he said.