MERSING, April 8 — The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA)-led search and rescue (SAR) team has expanded its operational sector in a bid to find the remaining three foreign divers this morning.
“As of this morning, there are no new clues or findings regarding the three other missing foreign divers.
“The joint Op Carilamat operation in the waters off Pulau Tokong Sanggol near here will be expanded to 335.79 square nautical miles with an aerial search covering an area of 427.89 square nautical miles.
“This covers a total number of search sectors that is 1,074 square nautical miles,” read a statement issued by the MMEA’’s Mersing Maritime Zone today.
The missing three — British national Adrian Peter, 46, his 14-year-old son Nathen Renze, who is a Dutch national and French woman Alexia Alexandra, 18, are still unaccounted for.
Yesterday, Norwegian dive instructor Kristine Grodem was reported found safe after being located about 30 nautical miles from where she was last reported seen near the waters off Pulau Tokong Sanggol here.
The 35-year-old dive master was found floating and fully equipped with diving gear by a tug boat en route from Indonesia to Thailand at 8.15am yesterday in the waters off Tanjung Sedili in Kota Tinggi.
The statement said the Op Carilamat operation started at 7am involving a total of 115 personnel from the MMEA and Royal Malaysian Police.
“A total of 11 boats from the MMEA and the Marine Police Force are taking part in the SAR efforts.
“They were assisted by the Armed Forces’ Special Operations Group (GGK), government agencies and the local fishing community,” said the statement.
The search for the remaining three missing foreign divers was halted yesterday at 6.30pm due to a lack of indicators and limited visibility.
