Rescued divers head back to Singapore

SAFE: Singaporean Hu Jin Jie (far right), 25, was among the six missing divers rescued after drifting for 20 hours in Tio- man waters on Sunday.(PHOTO: ROYAL MALAYSIAN POLICE)

The six divers who were found 20 hours after drifting in Tioman waters left for Singapore last night, an officer from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency told my paper yesterday.

They left Tanjung Gemuk, Pahang, at 1am, on a bus headed for Singapore, said the officer who declined to be named. He did not know what time they would reach Singapore.

He added that the people involved in the incident are working in Singapore.

Those rescued were Singaporean Hu Jin Jie, 25; Malaysians Yang Jia Xing, 26, Leong Li Kar, 26, Lim Kong Hoo, 27, and Maggie Lim, 27; and Chinese national Xu Zhiming, 33.

Malaysian newspaper The New Straits Times reported that they were with a group of 19 divers on a trip organised by a Singaporean tour agency.

Last Saturday, the party of six were reported missing by a fellow diver who was separated from them underwater. The six divers were stranded in the open sea and drifted about 25 nautical miles north of Tioman.

On Sunday morning, they were saved by the crew onboard a passing tugboat that was on its way to deliver cargo to Indonesia.

The tugboat captain had spotted a red flashing light from afar, according to Mr Peter Loo, manager of the Malaysian firm Lunar Shipping that owns the tugboat.

~News courtesy of Omy~