All-Night Search With 270 Flares Underway; 6 Still Missing After Tugboat Sinks

[Anchor]

An overnight search is underway to find six crew members still missing after a tugboat sank off the coast of Oryukdo, Busan, yesterday afternoon (September 2). No news of rescue has been reported yet.

Reporter Lee Seong-hoon has the details.

[Reporter]

The Coast Guard continued its all-night search to locate the six missing crew members from the 286-ton tugboat that sank off the coast of Oryukdo in Busan, but no additional survivors have been found yet.

The Coast Guard deployed 19 vessels, including military ships, and 3 aircraft, while dropping about 270 illumination flares in cooperation with the Air Force to conduct the nighttime search.

Focusing on the sunken tugboat resting on the seabed at a depth of 87 meters, authorities divided a 25-kilometer-wide and 12-kilometer-long sea area into 15 zones for intensive searching.

However, divers are experiencing difficulties entering the sunken hull due to deep waters and strong currents.

It has not yet been confirmed whether the missing persons remain inside the vessel or have drifted out into the sea.

The Coast Guard is continuing its search while considering the possibility that the missing individuals may have drifted far from the accident site due to strong currents.

The accident occurred at around 1:30 PM yesterday in waters 9 kilometers east of Oryukdo, Busan.

A total of eight people were on board the tugboat, including six South Koreans and two Indonesians.

Among them, one Indonesian crew member was rescued, while one South Korean crew member was found dead, leaving six people—five South Koreans and one Indonesian—still missing.

[Rescued Crew Member (Indonesian): I was in charge of cooking, and while I was cooking (when the ship capsized), I escaped quickly.]

The Coast Guard has established an investigation headquarters and is looking into the exact cause of the accident by questioning the surviving crew member and individuals related to the container ship that was being towed at the time of the incident.

In particular, authorities plan to focus on whether the accident occurred while the tugboat was connecting a towline to the container ship or pushing the hull to move it toward Busan Port.

(Video reporting: Oh Won-seok, Jeon Jae-hyun / KNN, Video editing: Ahn Yeo-jin, Footage provided by: Busan Coast Guard) (Photo courtesy of: Busan Coast Guard)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.