By Thai Newsroom Reporters
FIVE VIETNAMESE CREWMEMBERS of a trawler were rescued to safety after spending five days floating in stormy seas off Songkhla last night (Jan.28), said an official of the Thai Maritime Enforcement Command Centre.
The five unnamed Vietnamese crewmembers who had departed Kien Giang city in Vietnam aboard the Vietnamese fishing boat sailing in the Gulf of Thailand last week had gone overboard due to high tides and strong winds in the sea until they were spotted by a Thai trawler about 13 nautical miles off Songkhla last night, according to the TMECC official.
For safety reasons, the trawler and navy patrol boat could not literally get very close to each other whilst sailing under unfavourable weather conditions, forcing the Vietnamese fishermen to literally jump the boat and swim in the sea with a rope keeping them connected with the vessel for a while until they were finally picked up to safety by crewmembers of the navy patrol boat sailing by in a distance.
The five Vietnamese, three of whom were injured and rushed to hospital, have reportedly survived by floating on the surface of the stormy seas hanging onto empty water tanks which had apparently drifted in their vicinity for five days until they were spotted by the Thai fishing boat.
A number of Vietnamese trawlers had been intermittently spotted sailing across the Gulf of Thailand into Thailand’s territorial waters and arrested by patrol boats of the Second Naval Area Command on illegal entry charges. Most had reportedly sailed from Ca Mau and Kien Giang in southern Vietnam.
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Top and Front Page: The five Vietnamese fishermen being rescued. Photos: Daily News
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