[Anchor]
One of the six missing crew members from the tugboat accident in Busan has been found dead in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province. The discovery was made more than 100 kilometers away from the accident site. The Coast Guard has significantly expanded its search area to the northeast.
Here is reporter Kim Su-yun with the details.
[Reporter]
The tugboat capsizing accident occurred on the 2nd in the waters near Oryukdo Island in Busan.
Yesterday (the 9th), exactly one week after the accident, the body of one of the six missing crew members was found in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province.
The body was discovered near Dogu Beach in Pohang, which is a straight-line distance of more than 100 kilometers from the site of the accident.
This is the coast where the body of the missing person was found.
The body was spotted by local residents doing environmental cleanup work as part of a senior job program, and it is presumed to have drifted all the way to this beach due to strong currents.
[General Manager of Environmental Cleanup (Reporter): I told the residents, "Check carefully whether it is a doll or a person and let me know," and then they called me back saying, "It is definitely a person."]
The Coast Guard, dispatched after receiving the report, confirmed through fingerprint identification and smartphone forensics that the deceased was a South Korean man in his 50s identified as Mr. A, the second engineer of the tugboat.
He was confirmed to be the missing person whom an Indonesian crew member, rescued early in the accident, had testified about, saying, "He fell into the sea while following me to escape."
[Rescued Indonesian Crew Member (on the 2nd): I was on top of the (capsized) boat. The second engineer fell straight into the sea.]
He was a crew member who was spotted by container ship crew members immediately after the accident and whose appearance was also briefly captured on CCTV.
With the recovery of Mr. A's body, the death toll from this accident stands at 2, with 5 people still missing.
Believing that the missing persons may have drifted northeast, the Coast Guard has more than doubled its search radius to cover the entire East Coast region.
The Coast Guard also stated that it has requested cooperation from Japan and Russia to aid in the search for the missing persons.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
(Video Reported by Jeong Kyung-mun | Video Edited by Lee Hong-myeong | Design by Kim Han-gil)
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