Posted on 07/06/2018 11:37:19 AM PDT by Simon Green
Two boats carrying tourists off the coast of Thailand capsized in 16-foot waves near the resort island of Phuket, killing at least 33 people and leaving dozens missing, officials said Friday.
One of the boats, the double-decker cruise ship Phoenix PC Diving, was carrying 105 passengers — including 93 tourists, all from China — when it capsized Thursday after leaving Koh Racha, a popular snorkeling spot.
Phuket officials said Friday evening that 33 bodies had been recovered so far, all of them Chinese nationals. Twenty-three other people are missing.
The second boat, the Serenita, sank Thursday off Koh Mai Thon, a small resort island off the coast of Phuket. There were 42 people aboard, all of whom were rescued, officials said.
The boats had gone out to sea despite a severe weather warning.
Somjing Boontham, who said he was the captain of the Phoenix, said he had urged passengers to put on life jackets while crew members frantically lowered lifeboats as huge waves slammed and tilted the boat. Pictures from the scene showed lifeboats carrying up to 20 people, some of them children.
The capsizings came as Thailand has been transfixed by the efforts to rescue 12 boys and their soccer coach from the flooded Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand.
Wang Xudong, who is with a private search-and-rescue group from China, had been assisting at the cave, but on Friday he was preparing to search for his countrymen lost at sea instead.
“I never expected to be here in Phuket for something like this,” he said. “We had good news at the cave, and I hope we can have some good news in Phuket, too. I want to help out any way I can, either for Thai people or Chinese people.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This is sad. Thailand is having a rough time.
Posting the One Night in Bangkok is bad taste, but it came to mind.
“...The boats had gone out to sea despite a severe weather warning....”
Most accidents like this are always caused by people doing things they KNOW they are not supposed to do.
“The boats went out to sea despite a SEVERE WEATHER warning!”
It seems that decision makers in Thailand are not accustomed to looking at the big picture when approving social activities. Maybe that’s the way it has always been, largely unregulated, uninhibited.
The Chinese guests themselves should have seen the danger. Maybe such weather conditions are rare.
I wonder if new tourists are still entering other dangerous caves in other parts of Thailand? Probably yes. Keep the money coming in is the first thought.
Rode an elephant in Phuket......and you could never tell that the tsunami hit.....everything looked VERY OLD.
“The boats had gone out to sea despite a severe weather warning.”
Well, there you go.
Chinese tour operators, like everything else in China, have turned Chinese tours to Thailand into a low-price, low-cost, low-quality commodity operation.
Operators like the volume, but they cut corners, reduce safety and eliminate quality to meet the cost. There’s probably a lot of corruption and kick-backs in play as well.
Avoid any place the mass-market Chinese tours go.
Despite the weather warnings they just said Phuket. Sometimes a name is to blame, lol.
On the contrary...it’s monsoon season there right now, which is why I always go in January. Of course, prices are a lot cheaper when the weather’s not as nice.
THAILAND?
China would be completely stupid if they hadn’t been stealing our intellectual property for decades.
Who in their right mind would be snorkeling in 16’ seas?
If they do the right thing and cancel the boat trip they have to refund the money. I’m sure a CEO would tell the underling crew to take a chance.
Many people are ignorant. Many people are foolish. Either one can be deadly under certain circumstances. Combine the two…
If you’re referring to the Waveya music video. They are Korean not Thai.
It would have been less tacky than the ancient limericks which I was reminded of.
And more safe for work.
Life vests? Is it anti-Islamic or some religion not to wear life vests?
RIP.
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