The Belize Coast Guard (BCG) says it has successfully rescued seven people three miles from the Sarteneja Village in the Corozal District after their vessel began sinking on Sunday.
It said that several employees from the Crimson Inn in Chunox Village were onboard the vessel heading to San Pedro when it began taking in water.
However, the boat captain managed to send off a distress call to the BCG that later found the vessel submerged with two people discovered near the vessel and five others drifting on an icebox.
BCG Commander based in Consejp, Petty Officer First Class Dobian Montero the weather was very bad on Sunday and that the “the sea state was very rough”.
He said that the search and rescue operation team had sighted what appeared to have been “an object submerged in the water” and headed towards it before realising that the vessel had capsized.
“At the time, there were two male individuals hanging from the bow of the vessel. When we arrived there, they told us that there were another five personnel drifting on the water, so it was a total of seven persons.
“The lookout spotted a white object about a kilometre away from where we were and when we approach, we saw some shadows around the object. It was an icebox and fortunately the five persons were hanging onto that icebox. We retrieved them from the water and secured them on our vessel.”
“What we gathered from the owner of the vessel, is that the vessel dipped and took in water and that water caused the engine to lose power and therein shut down. With all that sea state, the boat was being bounced around and apparently the hull of the vessel cracked and that was the major factor that led the vessel to capsize,” he added.
He said while no major injuries were reported from the crew, they were a bit dehydrated.
BELMOPAN, Belize, Apr 18, CMC
CMC/af/ir/2023