150 rescued after five days in lifeboats

Press, 13 August 1986, Page 10

150 rescued after five days in lifeboats

NZPA-Reuter Halifax, Nova Scotia Three Canadian fishing boats have rescued 150 men, women, and children adrift in two lifeboats off the coast of Newfoundland for five days, an Armed Forces spokesman said. The skipper of one fishing boat, the Atlantic Reaper, had got in touch with search and rescue officials after discovering the lifeboats in fog about 6 nautical miles south of the Newfoundland coast.

Captain Richard Larouche said the survivors had been transferred to a Federal Fisheries

department boat sent to the scene and were heading for St John’s, Newfoundland, where they were expected to arrive this morning.

Details were still sketchy. A Coast Guard spokesman in St John’s said it was unclear how the survivors became abandoned at sea. "We have no information until they arrive in St John’s because of language problems,” said the spokesman, Bruce Reid. “Some reports have suggested they are from Sri Lanka but we have ng. confirmation,” he said. Mr Reid said some of the survivors had told

their rescuers they spent five days in the lifeboats, although no distress calls had been received from the area. The Atlantic Reaper reported the survivors to be mostly Orientals who could not speak English. Another Armed Forces official said there was no confirmation of the nationality of the survivors or whether a vessel had been abandoned.

At least two Soviet ships, one Cuban and one unidentified vessel had left St John’s last week, officials said. The vessels were large enough to carry 150 people.