British Divers Missing Off Malaysian Island
A British man, 46, and boy, 14, are among four European divers missing nine miles of a Malaysian island.
An 18-year-old French woman and a 35-year-old Norwegian woman are also among the group which authorities are now searching for off the southeastern coast of Malaysia.
A hunt involving boats from the coastguard, the police, and the fisheries department was launched at 2:45pm (6:45am GMT), senior coastguard official Nurul Hizam Zakaria said in a statement.
The island where they disappeared, Pulau Tokong Sanggol, is about nine miles (15km), off the Malaysian coast.
The area is popular with foreign and domestic visitors – there are resorts dotted along the coast and on nearby islands.
Diving accidents, while rare, do occasionally take place in Malaysia.
In 2013, a British tourist died when she was struck by a passing boat’s propeller while diving off resort islands in the South China Sea.
The tropical Southeast Asian nation’s white-sand beaches and lush rainforests have long made it a major draw, but the tourism industry was hit hard by travel curbs during the coronavirus pandemic.
The country’s borders reopened to foreign tourists last week after a two-year closure.
Source: Daily Mail
