Family in China say relatives sent Thai boat's last moments

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Family in China say relatives sent Thai boat's last moments

2018-07-09 13:00 Last Updated At：13:00

The boat lists hard to the right, sending a man tumbling across an aisle toward windows that look almost straight down on fast-moving white-capped waves. Another man catches him and appears to laugh nervously. A woman cries out. Someone else adjusts the child they are holding tightly in their lap.

The 10 second video captures the chaotic final moments of the Phoenix dive boat before it capsized and sank Thursday off the coast of the Thai resort of Phuket. The maritime disaster has claimed 41 lives, including the woman who sent the clip to her family in China and at least one of her two children.

"It's shaking violently, and I'm feeling very dizzy," Chen De Qiong, 47, wrote to her family's WeChat group just before the accident. "I want to go ashore immediately," she said in another message, adding that her 12-year-old son was feeling ill.

Her family, who shared the video with The Associated Press, is now demanding "justice" from Thai authorities. Her sister, Chen Wei, a businesswoman from China's Chongqing province, said the disaster was caused by human error and could have been avoided, noting that passengers in the video were not wearing life vests.

The boat was carrying 105 people, including 93 tourists, most of them from China, when it capsized after it was hit by 5-meter (16-foot) waves. As of Sunday morning, 14 people were still missing.

Chen De Qiong, a doctor, arrived in Phuket on July 1 for a long-planned vacation with her son and 21-year-old daughter. Her husband, Xing Yong, who is also a doctor, stayed behind in China as he was busy with work.

"I can hear the voice of my daughter screaming," Xing Yong said Saturday while transiting at Kuala Lumpur airport on his way to Phuket, as he showed the video to an AP reporter. "You can see that nobody wore life jackets."

The body of the daughter, Xing Yu Jie, was recovered Friday.

Once they arrived in Phuket on Saturday, Chen's sister and husband identified Chen's body at a hospital it had been taken to after being recovered earlier in the day. The son, Xing Hao Ran, was among the missing.

Chen Wei said the boat company ignored warnings of bad weather and failed to take adequate measures to ensure passenger safety. She said the video showed that glass windows in the boat cabin were sealed but they should have had latches so that they can be opened to allow passengers to swim out in an emergency.

Despite rough waves, the boat didn't stop and kept sailing, Chen Wei said.

"Three out of a family with four members gone. How would you feel about it? Which family can bear such a blow?" she said.

"There are loopholes everywhere that caused this tragedy," she said.

"I just want to seek justice for my family. This is not a natural disaster. This tragedy is man-made and could have been avoided," she added.

She said the vacation was planned as a celebration for her niece, who had just graduated from university, and her nephew, who is about to enter high school.

"A beautiful family gone like that, just like in a dream," a distraught Chen said.

The Latest | Israeli strikes in Rafah kill at least 5 as ship comes under attack in the Gulf of Aden

2024-04-25 19:39 Last Updated At：19:50

Palestinian hospital officials said Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip killed at least five people.

More than half of the territory’s population of 2.3 million have sought refuge in Rafah, where Israel has conducted near-daily raids as it prepares for an offensive in the city. In central Gaza, four people were killed in Israeli tank shelling.

A ship traveling in the Gulf of Aden came under attack Thursday, officials said, the latest assault likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels over the Israel-Hamas war.

Meanwhile, a top Hamas political official told The Associated Press that the Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel.

The Israel-Hamas war was sparked by the unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says the militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

The war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, around two-thirds of them children and women.

Currently:

— Ship comes under attack off coast of Yemen as Houthi rebel campaign appears to gain new speed

— US colleges turn to police to quell pro-Palestinian protests as commencement ceremonies near

— EU military officer says a frigate has destroyed a drone launched from Yemen’s Houthi-held areas

— Hamas official says group would lay down its weapons if a two-state solution is implemented

— World Central Kitchen workers killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza will be honored at memorial

Here is the latest:

JERUSALEM — An under-construction pier for a U.S.-led project to bring aid into the Gaza Strip came under fire Wednesday, forcing U.N. officials to take shelter there, Israeli and U.N. officials said.

No militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault, which the Israelis described as a mortar shell attack.

Authorities said that no one was wounded.

The attack marks a shaky start to the construction of the pier, a project that the U.S. is spearheading to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza. A Hamas official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the militant group will resist any foreign military presence involved with the port project.

NICOSIA, Cyprus — A top European Union military officer said that a frigate that’s part of an EU military mission in the Red Sea to protect merchant shipping destroyed a drone launched from an area in Yemen controlled by Houthi rebels on Thursday morning.

Austrian Gen. Robert Brieger, who is chair of the EU’s military committee, said that it would be crucial for the bloc to “conserve resources” over the long haul because the threat posed by Houthi attacks “will not disappear” due to its connection to the Israel-Hamas war.

“The task given to the military is simply to protect merchant ships and to show the public that the European Union is not willing to accept a terrorist organization will interrupt the freedom of movement at sea,” Brieger said.

Brieger said that he’s asking EU members to provide the necessary resources to the EU mission dubbed Aspides — Greek for “shields.”

He said that it’s the first time that the EU has launched a naval operation in a hostile environment that’s twice the size of the 27-nation bloc, calling it a “litmus test” that the bloc will pass successfully.

AUSTIN, Texas — With graduations looming, student protesters doubled down early Thursday on their discontent over the Israel-Hamas war on campuses across the United States as universities, including ones in California and Texas, have become quick to call in the police to end the demonstrations and make arrests.

While grappling with growing protests from coast to coast, schools have the added pressure of May commencement ceremonies. At Columbia University in New York, students defiantly erected an encampment where many are set to graduate in front of families in just a few weeks.

Columbia continued to negotiate with students after several failed attempts — and more than 100 arrests — to clear the encampment, but several universities ousted demonstrators Wednesday, swiftly turning to law enforcement when protests bubbled up on their campuses.

Police peacefully arrested student protesters at the University of Southern California, hours after officers at the University of Texas at Austin aggressively detained dozens in the latest clashes between law enforcement and those protesting the Israel-Hamas war on campuses nationwide.

JERUSALEM — A ship traveling in the Gulf of Aden has come under attack, the latest assault likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels over Israel’s ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The attack comes after the U.S. military said early Thursday an allied warship shot down a Houthi missile targeting a vessel the day before near the same area.

The Houthis claimed that Wednesday assault, which comes after a period of relatively few rebel attacks on shipping in the region over Israel’s ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In Thursday’s attack, a ship was targeted just over 25 kilometers southwest of Aden. That’s according to the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center.

BEIRUT — The Gaza Health Ministry says the bodies of 43 people killed in Israeli strikes have been brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 64 wounded people.

The ministry’s latest report, issued Thursday, brings the overall Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war to at least 34,305. It says another 77,293 have been wounded.

The Health Ministry doesn’t distinguish between fighters and civilians in its tallies, but it has said that women and children make up around two thirds of those killed.

The Israeli military says it has killed some 13,000 militants, without providing evidence. The war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and dragging some 250 hostages back to Gaza.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian hospital officials say Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip have killed at least five people.

Among those killed in the strikes overnight and into Thursday were two children, identified in hospital records as Sham Najjar, 6, and Jamal Nabahan, 8.

In central Gaza, four people were killed in Israeli tank shelling, and their bodies were brought to a local hospital. Family members told The Associated Press they were killed as they tried to move to northern Gaza, where Israel’s military is preventing people from returning to their homes.

Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. It has also vowed to expand its ground offensive against the Hamas militant group to the city on the border with Egypt despite calls for restraint, including from the United States.

The Israel-Hamas war was ignited by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, in which some 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and another 250 abducted.

The ongoing war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants in its account but has said that around two-thirds of those killed were women and children.

The war has devastated Gaza’s two largest cities and left a swath of destruction. Around 80% of the territory’s population have fled to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave.