Boat adrift for 9 weeks in Pacific

Boat adrift for 9 weeks in Pacific

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AFP): A group of Indonesians who set out in a wooden sailboat on a one-hour trip ended up nine weeks later 3,000 kilometers away in Micronesia after a storm destroyed their sail, the U.S. Coast Guard on Guam said.

Four were in a Micronesian hospital yesterday and nine or more died during their ordeal -- the second time in a month an Indonesian boat has drifted to the Federated States of Micronesia.

Lt. Carl Hinshaw, public affairs officer for the U.S. Coast Guard Guam, said the 10 meter boat left Manado in Sulawesi on Sept. 13 and was found Monday 515 kilometers southwest of Chuuk in Micronesia.

He said the Coast Guard believed those on board only planned a one-hour trip from Manado to an island. But soon after they set out a storm hit the boat and destroyed the sail.

A number of people were swept overboard and others starved during the voyage.

Hinshaw said it was not yet entirely clear how many people had been on the boat but they believed 13.

He said the area was renowned for the Equatorial Counter Current which sweeps in many directions, often turning back on itself.

"It makes it very hard for search and rescue to find anybody."

Hinshaw said five people were rescued by a Taiwanese fishing boat, the Fong Seong Number 707, but a woman died soon afterward.

The boat sank soon after the rescue.

The surviving man and three females were taken to Chuuk yesterday morning. Hinshaw said their condition was improving.

On Oct. 23 six Indonesians, including a child, were picked up after three months adrift. They were on a fishing boat from Morotai which had spent three months drifting without engine power. One person died.