US Coast Guard
Boat capsizes en route to Florida – one survivor and 39 missing
The boat accident off Florida may have survived only this one man
© Handout/US Coast Guard / AFP
A boat with 40 people on board apparently set sail from the Bahamas towards Florida on Saturday. Then it capsized in the storm. Only one survivor has been discovered so far.
After a boat capsized about 70 kilometers east of the Florida coast, the US Coast Guard is looking for 39 people who are said to have been on board. The Coast Guard said they were alerted by another person on Tuesday after the rescue of a shipwrecked person. The rescued clung to the capsized boat.
According to him, the boat started on Saturday night on the Bimini archipelago in the Bahamas and then got caught in a storm. The boat then capsized. “According to the survivor, no one was wearing a life jacket,” the Coast Guard said. Forces searched with ships and from the air for possible survivors. The crash site is more than 70 kilometers east of Fort Pierce, a city 220 kilometers north of Miami. The Coast Guard said several ships and planes were involved in the search.
Boat probably used by people smugglers
The Coast Guard posted a photo of the rescued man sitting on the bottom of the capsized boat on Twitter. The coast guard said about the boat: “This is a suspected human smuggling operation.”
Bimini is the westernmost group of islands in the Bahamas – closest to the US mainland. The Bahamas are known as a stopover point for gangs of people smugglers who want to bring refugees and migrants to the United States.