As the ocean calmed on Friday, divers transferred the bodies of the dead, including at the very least one child, from smaller boats to a bigger vessel participating within the search operation.
The death toll rose after the Navy sent divers to the wreck of a tour boat that capsized and sank Thursday evening when it was hit by 5-meter-high waves.
There were 105 people on board, including 93 tourists, 11 crew members and one guide. At least 12 injured people were taken to hospital.
The accident seemed to be the most important disaster for Thai tourism in years and attracted great attention from the Chinese embassy in Bangkok.
Wu Jun, 28, a passenger, was on the bedside of his wife Long Hai Ning.
“When we left, the sky was clear and we had no idea the weather could change so quickly,” he said.
The couple, who were on their honeymoon, were on different decks when the boat began to tilt, but each managed to flee.
“I grabbed the railing and pulled myself overboard,” he said, adding that he feared women and kids were amongst those trapped on the lower deck because the boat sank.
Another boat capsized during a storm near Phuket on Thursday afternoon, but all 42 people on board were rescued. One fisherman continues to be missing after being kidnapped by a Thai fishing boat near Krabi province on Thursday.
The deputy chief of the tourist police office, Maj. Gen. Surachate Hakparn, said in a Facebook post that tour operators had been warned of severe weather conditions.
“Be careful… nature is not a joke,” Surachate wrote. “The tourism police had already warned companies in Phuket not to pull boats from the shore, but they violated this order by taking away foreign tourists.”
The accidents occurred as rescuers, also led by Thai navy divers, helped 12 boys and their soccer coach who had been stuck for nearly two weeks in a flooded cave within the country’s far north and were attempting to determine how and when to rescue them.
Jin Yilin, consul general of the Chinese embassy in Thailand, said a delegation from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was on its solution to Thailand.
“It is necessary to search for the missing people,” the embassy said in an announcement on Friday. “We ask the Thai side to mobilize all possible forces and never waste time in looking for the still missing Chinese nationals.”
The largest variety of foreign tourists visiting Thailand are Chinese tourists, and their number has increased dramatically lately on account of the growing popularity of the islands belonging to the Southeast Asian country.
In 2017, a complete of over 9.8 million people from China got here to Thailand, which is the biggest percentage in individual countries out of the record 35.38 million total foreign tourists.
A foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing said China’s top leaders, including President Xi Jinping, were paying close attention to the incident.
“China expresses gratitude for Thailand’s energetic search and rescue efforts,” spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily briefing.
The rescue team considers options as rain threatens the Thai boys within the cave
The rescue team considers options as rain threatens the Thai boys within the cave
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, leader of the Thai military government, expressed his “sympathies and deepest condolences” to the families of the victims.
The government “will make every effort to locate those still missing and supply support to all who survived this tragic event,” it said in an announcement.
Thai officials were rushing to take care of among the logistics of the sinking’s aftermath.
At the request of the Governor of Phuket, the Phuket Tourism Association was on the lookout for 80 volunteer Chinese translators to help Chinese passengers departing for the provincial airport.
Many of the victims participated in organized group trips to 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 telephone text message warning of the danger from the top of Haining Haipai Furniture Co. on Friday morning. Ltd. from Thailand.
It said 37 furniture company employees and their members of the family were traveling together to Phuket and on July 5 around 5 p.m., they encountered the “biggest storm in five years” and sought government assistance.
According to the post, the group booked their trips to the islands themselves online.
A Chinese tour operator based in central Hunan province said on its official Sina Weibo account that three travelers it had booked were missing.
Photos from Thursday showed rescued people on large rubber life rafts, against a backdrop of fishing boats and rough seas. Survivors were shown being lifted from their rafts and sitting in life jackets amongst ropes on the deck of what seemed to be a fishing trawler.
Severe weather conditions, including heavy rain and wind, were forecast through Tuesday. Phuket Governor Norraphat Plodthong said officials would consider whether to ban boats from going out to sea during strong winds.
Thursday’s storms forced 12 boats with a complete of 263 passengers to stay in port on Racha Island, a well-liked diving site about an hour by boat from Phuket.
Additional reporting by Reuters
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: Tourist boat death toll could rise from 37 Tourist boat sinking death toll could rise from 37
