The Philippine coast guard said Thursday it would end a week-long search for six missing crew members of a fishing boat that sank in bad weather in the country’s eastern waters.
The Genesis 2 sank 337 kilometers (209 miles) east of the southern island of Mindanao on June 22. Fourteen crew members were rescued and the bodies of three others were recovered, said local coast guard official Lieutenant Junior Grade Elmar Mesina.
“There’s only a low possibility of locating more survivors,” said Mesina, the coast guard station chief in Davao Oriental province, when asked by AFP if the six were presumed dead.
The coast guard’s head office in Manila announced Thursday that it had recommended to its commander to “terminate” the search.
It quoted the rescued crew members as saying the six men, including the captain, might have been trapped inside the vessel, which sank amid big waves in an area where the seafloor was about 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) deep.
The PCG deployed the BRP Tubbataha (MRRV-4401) to respond to a maritime incident involving a F/B Genesis 2 that sank last June 22.
The survivors recalled that they encountered a sudden change in sea conditions at around 12 midnight, causing their fishing boat to sink an hour later.
Based on the crew manifest, F/B Genesis 2 had 23 crewmembers at the time of the accident.
A coast guard patrol vessel left the area on Wednesday after conducting the search, Mesina said.
The cause of the accident is under investigation.