Free Republic

The military has given up the search for missing sailors and started efforts to salvage the Navy corvette Cheonan, which sank due to an unexplained explosion on March 26. The decision follows a request from the families of missing sailors after several people died or were injured in search operations in treacherous waters. Navy Warrant Officer Han Joo-ho died on March 30 and the Kumyang 98, a dragnet trawler, sank during search operations in waters off Baeknyeong Island last Friday evening and crew died or went missing. Experts speculate that the salvage operations will take at least 10 days even...

SEOUL, April 3 (Yonhap) -- A fishing boat has vanished and is feared to have sunk after searching for sailors missing from last week's naval disaster, maritime police said Saturday. Police said they lost contact with the 99-ton boat, carrying nine people aboard, after receiving a distress signal at around 8:30 p.m. Friday in the area off the western sea border with North Korea, where the patrol ship Cheonan ship sank on March 26.

The Coast Guard says a South Korean fishing boat that joined the search for a navy ship that sank with 46 sailors aboard last week has disappeared. Coast Guard said Saturday it was searching for the 99-ton boat with seven South Korean and two Indonesian crew members on board. Contact with the boat was lost late Friday near the maritime border with North Korea.

The boat belonging to two teenagers who went missing off the coast of Florida during a fishing trip last year was discovered off Bermuda nearly eight months after they vanished, authorities said Saturday. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission said the 19-foot single-engine boat that Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, both 14, sailed off the coast of Jupiter on July 24 was found by a Norwegian supply boat on March 18 while on the way to Norway. The vessel was discovered about 100 miles off the coast of Bermuda, or about 1,000 miles from where Stephanos and Cohen were last...