MANILA: The Philippine Navy rescued 121 people aboard a boat six days after it went adrift at sea, officials said on Wednesday (Jan 15).
The J Sayang 1 lost engine power, ran out of fuel and suffered communication equipment failure while on a domestic voyage in “adverse weather conditions” across the Sulu Sea on Jan 8, a navy statement said.
A navy patrol boat found the missing boat off the coast of the Philippines’ southern Tawi-Tawi archipelago on Tuesday, it added.
Its 106 passengers and 15 crew members, all Filipinos, were “psychologically distressed after days of limited food and water” but were otherwise physically well, the statement said.
A navy official in the region told AFP the boat has a wooden hull and a “40 tonnes to 50 tonnes capacity”, adding the passengers and crew survived on “stock food in the boat”.
The boat had drifted around 100km southwest over six days from off the tiny island of Pangutaran, where the navy said the boat’s engine had failed.
The boat had been declared missing while sailing from the southern port of Zamboanga for the Turtle Islands near Malaysia about 430km away, one of the most remote areas of the Philippines.
