Moya Gyan­dass, the wife of Sie­u­nar­ine Gyan­dass, who is still miss­ing at sea, is dis­put­ing Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion that the T&T Coast Guard was not tardy in its re­sponse to the plight of six men who aban­doned their fish­ing ves­sel on Sun­day. Gyan­dass said yes­ter­day that she had been at Car­li Bay since the in­ci­dent oc­curred and es­ti­mat­ed that it took about an hour for the Coast Guard to re­spond to the ini­tial dis­tress call.

Gyan­dass yes­ter­day re­turned to Car­li Bay for the third day since Sie­u­nar­ine, 51, his broth­er Chu­ni­lal Gyan­dass, 53, broth­er-in-law Ku­mar Lal­la, 49, cousin Ronald Nar­i­nesingh, 36 and Mar­lo, 23 and his cousin Glen Pra­ha­l­ad, 34, got in­to dif­fi­cul­ties while fish­ing off the Car­li Bay coast.

Re­ports stat­ed that they all left Car­li Bay around 1 pm Sun­day to fish but the chop­py sea con­di­tions lat­er caused the boat to take in wa­ter and around 3 pm when it be­gan to sink the men jumped out.

Lal­la and Pra­ha­l­ad were able to swim back to shore but the oth­ers drift­ed away. Around 11.30 am Mon­day, a search crew, led by rel­a­tives, found the bod­ies of Chu­ni­lal and Nar­i­nesingh. The search con­tin­ued for Sie­u­nar­ine and Mar­lo late yes­ter­day.

Moya told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the boat was found near King’s Wharf in San Fer­nan­do.

In the Up­per House yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment about the ac­ci­dent in light of re­ports in which Gyan­dass claimed that had the Coast Guard re­spond­ed quick­ly and car­ried out a prop­er search, the men could have sur­vived.

In an ur­gent ques­tion to Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young, Mark asked whether the Coast Guard car­ried out a prop­er search fol­low­ing the ac­ci­dent and what was done to as­sist the men.

Re­spond­ing to Mark, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Clarence Ramb­harat said that up to yes­ter­day the Gov­ern­ment had no re­port that point­ed to any fail­ure by the Coast Guard or any law en­force­ment body. He said when the mes­sage was re­ceived by the Coast Guard they re­spond­ed but be­cause of the dark­ness, it be­came dif­fi­cult to con­tin­ue the search. He said the Coast Guard re­sumed the search on Mon­day morn­ing and con­tin­ued yes­ter­day. He said an air­craft was al­so de­ployed to aid in the search

But Mark asked if the min­is­ter was aware that the Coast Guard was tardy in its re­sponse to the dis­tress call. Ramb­harat said the Coast Guard re­spond­ed by redi­rect­ing a ves­sel to the men’s cause. Mark then ques­tioned whether the Coast Guard ves­sel re­turned to base be­cause the fu­el sup­ply ran low, leav­ing the vic­tims strand­ed at sea. How­ev­er, Ramb­harat said there was noth­ing fac­tu­al in the ques­tion.

In re­sponse to Ramb­harat’s an­swers, Gyan­dass said it was she who con­tact­ed the Coast Guard, po­lice and am­bu­lance. She said when the Coast Guards­men ar­rived, they cir­cled the area where the boat sank for about 15 to 20 min­utes and then wait­ed around an hour be­fore they left.

She said she will re­turn to Car­li Bay to­day and will con­tin­ue to do so un­til her hus­band is found.