Rescued at sea

By SYLVESTER WEMURU
FOURTEEN passengers including three students who had been drifting at sea a whole night because of an engine failure were rescued by a passing tug boat yesterday.
Boat skipper Katux Labiu said they had left Kubugam in Madang at around 2pm on Tuesday heading for Karkar after topping up the fuel at a boat stop.
But as they headed out to sea, he said the engine suddenly stopped.
He found out that the fuel they had just bought was mixed with water.
One of the passengers managed to call the police in Madang who organised a search for them.
But Labiu said the wind was very strong and was driving them out into open sea and out of the range of the mobile phone network on Tuesday night.
He said they lost track of their location.
They spent Tuesday night at sea eating biscuit and chewing betel nut, he said.
On Wednesday morning, the captain of a tug boat, on its way to Lihir, spotted them and took them on board.
“Luckily, the towing boat was travelling close to us,” Labiu said.
“We signaled to them and they responded,” he said.
“I want to thank the boat captain and the crew members for responding to the signs we were putting up.
“I also want to thank the police who responded to our call on Tuesday night and went out to look for us although they could not locate us because of the strong wind which drove us away from the mobile network coverage area.”
The officer in charge of the Madang water police Sgt Obert Lim said according to the tug boat captain, they sighted the drifting 23-foot boat with a 40-horse power engine at Bagabag at around 2am yesterday while travelling to Lihir.
He said the captain noticed the signals from the boat passengers and went closer to check.
Madang disaster office director Rudolph Mongalle thanked the captain and crew members of the Pacific Towing tug boat MV Yomba for rescuing the 14 passengers.
He said so many warnings had been issued regarding the risk of travelling out to sea during bad weather but boat operators continued to ignore them.