Dutch teen killed in Malaysia diving accident, two rescued
A Dutch teenager was killed when a group he was diving
with off Malaysia's coast went missing, officials said Saturday following the
dramatic rescue of his father and two others.
The three Europeans and their instructor got into
trouble Wednesday after they surfaced from a dive near a southern island but
could not find their boat.
A British man, 46-year-old Adrian Chesters, and
Frenchwoman Alexia Molina, 18, were discovered by fishermen in the waters of
neighbouring Indonesia, picked up by marine police and taken back to Malaysia.
But Chesters told officials that his son, 14-year-old
Nathen, who holds Dutch citizenship, had died.
The teen, "as a result of being too weak... was
unable to survive", a coastguard statement said, citing the father.
Police earlier said the search for the boy had been
called off after they concluded he had floated into Indonesian waters, and they
had informed their counterparts in the archipelago nation.
In recent days, Malaysia had deployed helicopters, a
plane, boats, divers and jet skiers to hunt over a large area.
The instructor, Norwegian woman Kristine Grodem, had
already been rescued on Thursday in waters off southern Malaysia.
The other two survivors were found about 30 kilometres
(18 miles) north of Indonesia's Bintan Island -- having drifted some 130
kilometres from where they had been diving.
The pair were admitted to a Malaysian hospital in a
stable condition, said local police chief Cyril Edward Nuing in the coastal
town of Mersing, the base for search operations.
Authorities did not give details on how the rescued
trio survived a long period drifting at sea, and said they had not yet been
questioned in detail about their ordeal.
Previously, officials had expressed hope the divers
would be found alive as they had substantial experience and were well equipped,
including with a diving buoy.
They also said light rains in recent days might have
helped the divers survive by providing drinking water.
On Thursday, the French teen's mother Esther Molina
told AFP from Mersing that the family were "hoping for the best. She's a
strong girl, she'll kick ass."
Grodem had been instructing the divers close to a
small island, Tokong Sanggol, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) off Malaysia's
southeast coast, when the accident happened.
After a dive lasting about 40 minutes, they surfaced
but could not find their boat. They drifted together in strong currents, but
ended up getting separated.
The captain of the boat who took them to the dive site
has been arrested after testing positive for drugs.
The area where the accident happened is popular with
foreign and domestic visitors -- resorts dot the coast and the islands.
Diving accidents, while rare, do occasionally happen
in Malaysia.
In 2013, a British tourist died when she was struck by
a passing boat's propeller while diving off resort islands in the South China
Sea.
The tropical Southeast Asian nation's borders reopened
to foreign tourists on April 1 after a two-year coronavirus closure, and
thousands of visitors have arrived.
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