Marina Bay boat fire: boatman lost at sea

By
Cheryl Tee
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A bumboat caught fire along the Singapore River yesterday, with everyone onboard escaping unscathed – except from one man.

The search for the missing man continued today until 2am today before getting called off. The SCDF said it would continue to dispatch its resources every two hours to look for “anything that surfaces”.

The SCDF received a call about the burning call at 6.26pm, and extinguished the fire using two water jets from the river bank. Divers from the Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (DART) began searching for the missing man, as his relatives waited at a cordoned-off area near the Esplanade.

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Image: Today (Ooi Boon Keong)
Image: Today (Ooi Boon Keong)

The man, who is believed to be in his 30s, was clad in a yellow top and khaki pants at the time of the incident. According to an eyewitness, the man managed to “jump into the water from the back of the boat”, and was accompanied by three or four “soft blasts”.

In eyewitness videos posted on Facebook, massive plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the boat as a crowd gathered on the walkway near the Esplanade.

Images and videos of the burning boat, with plumes of black smoke rising into the sky, spread online like wildfire.
Image: Luke, Mark Cheong
Image: Luke, Mark Cheong

According to the Straits Times, about seven or eight rescue boats were seen combing the area for the missing man at 9pm. But according to the SCDF, their search was badly affected by the poor visibility at night, and also the deep silt present on the river bed which the divers had to sift through.

This post was first published on goodyfeed.com

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Cheryl Tee
Email: [email protected]