Drifters from Aitape survive rough seas

SEVEN people have being found after going missing in rough seas on Saturday.
The group, including four  youths who were journeying to attend the Nazarene Youth International conference in Bangkok, Thailand, beginning tomorrow, set off from Aitape about noon on Saturday in a seven-metre fibreglass boat powered by a 40-horsepower outboard motor.Sea conditions were rough and the group failed to arrive
at their destination about six hours later.
The alarm was raised when they failed to turn up yesterday.
According to the Nazarene Communications Network (NCN) website the small boat apparently lost power but the crew was able to get it to land in a remote area.
The group began hiking out and was able to get word out that they were safe late on Sunday night, NCN said.
“The PNG group that has been missing for more than 40 hours have been found alive,” Church of Nazarene Asia-Pacific regional director Verne Ward told NCN.
A search and rescue operation by Papua New Guinea Defence Force personnel that was to be launched yesterday morning to scour the area east of Vanimo was called off.
NCN did not disclose where the boat’s original intended destination was or the names and ages of the four youths.
The four were to join approximately 250 participants from 55 countries at the six-day conference in Bangkok.
Aitape is a coastal town of about 8,000 people on the north coast of Papua New Guinea, in West Sepik.
The Church of Nazarene is an evangelical Christian denomination that emerged from the 19th century Holiness movement in North America.
It is the largest Wesleyan-holiness denomination in the world with more than two million members in 27,524 churches in 157 “world areas” according to 2011 statistics.