MIAMI (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard said today that its crews recovered one body and continue to search for 38 other people in the ocean off Florida days after their boat left the Bahamas in a suspected human smuggling attempt.
Capt. Jo-Ann F. Burdian told a news conference that finding the other migrants alive is their highest priority.
“It is dire. The longer they remain in the water … exposed to the marine environment … with every moment that passes, it becomes much more dire and more unlikely” that survivors will be found,” she said.
A solitary survivor was found clinging to the overturned hull of a boat that capsized off the Florida coast during a suspected smuggling attempt.
Crews on at least four ships and five aircraft already scanned a vast area about the size of Rhode Island on Tuesday after the man was pulled to safety.
The man told a good Samaritan who rescued him that he was part of a group of 40 people who left the island of Bimini in the Bahamas on Saturday night in what the maritime security agency suspects was a human smuggling operation. He said none wore life jackets as they capsized in severe weather.
The Coast Guard said a small craft advisory had been issued as a severe cold front blew through the dangerous passage on Saturday and Sunday, with winds up to 23 mph and swells up to 9 feet high. Tommy Sewell, a local bonefishing guide, said there were high winds and fierce squalls of rain on Sunday into Monday.
The survivor was brought to a hospital for symptoms of dehydration and sun exposure after he was found early Tuesday sitting on the hull 45 miles east of Fort Pierce, the agency reported. The Coast Guard did not immediately describe the nationality of the survivor or the people lost at sea.
