PHUKET: Divers who entered the wreck of a tour boat that sank in a storm off the southern Thai resort island of Phuket described heartbreaking scenes of bodies of children found in the arms of their mothers, as the search continued Saturday for 15 mostly Chinese tourists missing in a disaster that has left dozens dead.
The death toll from Thursday’s tragedy climbed to 41, in Thailand’s biggest tourist-related disaster in years. It was not clear how many of the dead and missing were Chinese. In announcing a previous death toll of 33, authorities said all of those victims were Chinese.
“It’s very difficult to see ... it’s traumatic, it’s tragic but the best thing to do, our job as divers, is to bring back the bodies to their families,” diver Philip Entremont told reporters before resuming the search Saturday.
The boat, with 105 people, including 93 tourists, capsized and sank after it was hit by 5-meter (16-foot) waves.
The death toll jumped Friday after the navy sent divers to the wreck. In images shortly after the sinking, rescued people sat in large rubber life rafts surrounded by churning seas.
Phuket Gov. Norraphat Plodthong announced at a news conference on Saturday evening that the death toll had climbed to 41, with 15 missing.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the leader of Thailand’s military government, expressed his “sympathies and deepest condolences” to the families of the dead. The government will “exert all efforts to find those still missing and provide support to all survivors of this tragic event,” he said in a statement.
Reports in Thai media said police charged the owner and captain of the stricken ship with carelessness causing death and injury.
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for all-out search and rescue efforts, telling the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese diplomats in Thailand to take greater measures, and also urging Thai authorities to spare no efforts.
Chinese Ambassador Lyu Jian had an “emergency conversation” by phone with Thai Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, the Chinese Embassy said in a statement. It quoted the envoy calling on Thailand to quickly mobilize an intensive search for the missing and “to tend and make appropriate arrangements for the rescued Chinese tourists, treat and cure the injured and receive family members of the Chinese tourists involved.”
Lyu said it hoped the cause of the capsizing would be quickly ascertained and asked Somkid to have the relevant Thai agencies closely cooperate with China on the matter.
Fatal accidents among foreign tourists at Thai beaches are not unusual, but normally involve drownings in unsafe swimming areas or accidents involving smaller boats.
Thai officials were rushing to cope with some of the logistics of the aftermath of the sinking.
At the request of Phuket’s governor, the Phuket Tourist Association was seeking 80 volunteer Chinese language translators to assist the outgoing Chinese passengers at the provincial airport.
Many of the victims had been on group tours, booked in Phuket and China.
The government of the eastern Chinese city of Haining in Zhejiang province said on its official microblog account that it received a distress alert sent by phone text message from the head of the Haining Haipai Furniture Co. Ltd., from Thailand Friday morning.
It said that 37 of the furniture company’s employees and family members had traveled together to Phuket and that on July 5 at around 5 p.m. they encountered the “biggest storm in five years” and they sought the government’s help. The group had booked their tours to the islands online on their own, said the posting.
A Chinese tour operator based in the central province of Hunan said on its official Sina Weibo account that three travelers it had booked were missing.
Lazy Cat Travel said it had sent personnel to Phuket to help out its clients, who also included 35 passengers who had to be rescued from another boat that it had chartered that ran into trouble on Thursday. It said that second boat had lost power after being swamped by waves. All on board were returned safely to shore.
The accidents came as rescuers, also led by Thai navy divers, support 12 boys and their soccer coach stranded nearly two weeks inside a flooded cave in the country’s far north, and try to determine how and when to extract them.
Heartbreaking scenes described in Thai boat sinking; 41 dead
Heartbreaking scenes described in Thai boat sinking; 41 dead
- The death toll from Thursday’s tragedy climbed to 41
- The incident is Thailand’s biggest tourist-related disaster in years
US quits global organization dedicated to preventing violent extremism
- With other international agencies scaling back following mass US foreign aid cuts last year, GCERF said it now carries much of the global prevention burden alone, and that its $50 million annual budget had not risen to fill the growing gaps
GENEVA: A global organization dedicated to preventing violent extremism said on Friday the US had made a mistake in withdrawing its support while the risk of militant attacks surges in the Middle East and Africa’s Sahel.
The Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, which supports prevention programs across dozens of countries with communities vulnerable to extremism — appeared on Wednesday in a White House memo announcing a US pullout from 35 international agencies and 31 UN entities it said rejected US interests.
Dr. Khalid Koser, head of the Geneva-based GCERF, said the decision came as a surprise and without explanation and that it reflected a deeper ideological shift under US President Donald Trump’s administration away from multilateral prevention programs toward security-focused counterterrorism measures.
“I think it’s a mistake to take out that fundamental piece of prevention. But I don’t think this administration believes in prevention,” Koser told Reuters.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Koser said risks of extremist violence were higher than at any point since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, citing as examples Afghanistan, the Sahel and camps in northeast Syria that hold tens of thousands of Daesh family members — and a new generation at risk of radicalization after the Gaza war.
“If you don’t work on prevention, then in 10 years time, you’re going to have lots of terrorists and lots of problems.”
Further underlining a US repudiation of multilateral cooperation bodies under Trump’s “America First” policy, the White House also announced it was quitting the 30-nation Global Counterterrorism Forum.
The US helped establish GCERF’s program in northeast Syria that helps reintegrate families from former Daesh militant circles. Koser said that while GCERF’s work would go on, it was losing a major player in the US, and that Washington’s decision was perplexing given GCERF’s agenda remained relevant to US national interests.
With other international agencies scaling back following mass US foreign aid cuts last year, GCERF said it now carries much of the global prevention burden alone, and that its $50 million annual budget had not risen to fill the growing gaps.
The 2025 Global Terrorism Index issued by the Institute for Economics and Peace showed the number of countries recording a terrorist attack increased from 58 to 66 in 2024, reversing nearly a decade of improvements.
