Bodies recovered in boat tragedy

Authorities have recovered 22 bodies, including that of an eight-year-old boy, after a tourist boat carrying about 130 passengers sank off the coast of southern Vietnam, police said today.

The boat, carrying students and tourists to nearby Hon Khoai island, sank yesterday afternoon a few miles offshore from Ca Mau province, Vietnam’s southernmost tip, police said.

More than a thousand police, military and fishermen fanned out through the waters, rescuing a total of 92 people, said police officer Chau Minh Nguyen, head of the investigations bureau of Ngoc Hien district police.

About another dozen people are still missing, he said. Police do not know the exact number of passengers on the boat since tickets were sold on board. So far, the dead include 18 women, three men, and the eight-year-old boy.

Police suspect that a broken pump was responsible for the boat sinking.