Dozens of tourists missing in boat capsize off Thailand’s Phuket

PHUKET: Dozens of mainly Chinese passengers are missing after a boat capsized as high winds whipped up rough seas off the Thai tourist island of Phuket, officials said late Thursday.

The boat was carrying around 90 passengers when it keeled over after it was hit by massive waves, prompting a rescue operation that stretched into the night and left authorities scrambling to react.

The governor of southern Phuket, Noraphat Plodthong, said 49 people — over half of the passengers — were still “being helped” as rescue boats rushed to the scene.

A second provincial official, requesting anonymity, told AFP rescuers “are working to find” the 49 missing.

Television footage taken at a pier in Phuket showed stunned tourists huddling in blankets, while several women cried as medics tended to the injured. The boat was returning to Phuket from Koh Racha at around 4:00 pm (0900 GMT) when a storm hit, according to the captain, who identified himself as Somjing Boontham in a televised interview.

He said the boat was hit by five metre-high waves, which flooded the boat and started to slowly keel over, prompting him to warn passengers to put on life jackets and trigger inflatable life rafts.

“So I sent someone to them to wear life jackets... They were all Chinese visitors — apart from two farang,” he said using Thai vernacular for westerners, adding around half the passengers were unaccounted for.

Phuket is a magnet for overseas visitors including Western sun-seekers and Chinese tourists who will make up the bulk of the 35 million people expected to visit the kingdom this year.