Debris believed to be from sunken fishing vessel found, crew still missing

Debris believed to have been from the fishing vessel ‘Alama 5’ which sank late Monday night, have been found whilst the three crew members aboard at the time of the incident still remain missing.

Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) said that coastguard officials have discovered objects likely to have been cast adrift from the sunken vessel one nautical mile north of Faafu Atoll.

The objects which were found include ice boxes and other fisheries necessities.

The three crew members on board at the time of the incident is the boat captain, a Maldivian, and two Bangladeshi crew members.

MNDF said that they received reports of a vessel sinking four nautical miles from the southwest of V. Fuhsaru, about 23:22pm last night.

When Coastguard arrived at the scene upon the reports, the vessel and its crew members were nowhere to be found.

They detailed that at the time of the incident, Alama 5 was traveling to Male’ City after purchasing groupers from other grouper fishing vessels based near Fuhsaru.

The search to locate the vessel and its missing crew members by MNDF and Coastguard is still underway.