Four fishermen rescued after drifting at sea for nine days

The fishermen were crew members of a ship which departed from Phan Thiet Port in Binh Thuan Province towards waters of the Spratly Islands (Truong Sa) on June 21. The ship, with 15 crew members, went missing on July 10 amid rough seas and strong winds.

The last known location of the ship at around 5 a.m. that day was about 233 km away from Phan Thiet Port, authorities said.

Over a week since, 11 vessels of the authorities and civilians were dispatched to find the missing ship. On Tuesday afternoon, the office of the Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, Search and Rescue of Binh Thuan said a fishing vessel from the nearby Binh Dinh Province found four fishermen of the missing vessel at sea near the Spratly Islands.

The office said at around 1:10 p.m., the Binh Dinh vessel found the four floating on a coracle, still alive. The fishermen said there were originally seven people on the coracle, but three later died and their bodies were pushed off the coracle. The fishermen said they didn’t remember where exactly did they drop the bodies.

At the point of their rescue, the fishermen’s health was weak. The whereabouts of the rest of the crew have not been confirmed. A search is ongoing.

Border guard forces of Binh Thuan have devised plans to instruct the Binh Dinh vessel to return to shore so that the rescued fishermen could be taken care of.