LANGKAWI
\nAuthorities in Malaysia and Thailand have recovered at least 21 bodies as they search for survivors after a boat carrying undocumented migrants capsized, police and maritime officials said on Monday.
\nOfficials said the boat was carrying about 70 migrants, many believed to be from Myanmar\u2019s persecuted Rohingya community trying to reach Malaysia, when it capsized near Thailand\u2019s Tarutao island four days ago.
\nThey were believed to have been part of a larger group of some 300 people who were split between at least two boats, police said.
\nTarutao is just north of Malaysia\u2019s island resort of Langkawi, where officials said search-and-rescue operations were being concentrated.
\nRomli Mustafa, director of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) in the northern states of Kedah and Perlis, said rescuers found five more bodies on Monday, without disclosing their nationality or ethnicity.
\nSeven recovered at the weekend were all identified as Rohingya.
\n\u201cOur search counterpart, the Thai authorities, has so far found… a total of nine bodies. No survivors were found in Thai waters,\u201d Romli told reporters on Monday evening.
\nSearch-and-rescue operations were expected to last for seven days, he said, depending on further discoveries and the weather.
\nRomli said earlier on Monday at least 12 vessels were searching for survivors in an area of around 250 square nautical miles, roughly the same size as the city-state of Singapore.
\n\u201cWe will continue to expand the search grid,\u201d he said.
\nMMEA patrol vessels set out off Langkawi early on Monday in choppy seas under blazing tropical sun, according to AFP journalists on one of the vessels.
\nWith spray lashing the decks, the harsh conditions forced the boat to seek temporary shelter at a nearby resort island before resuming the search.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LANGKAWI Authorities in Malaysia and Thailand have recovered at least 21 bodies as they search for survivors after a boat carrying undocumented migrants capsized, police and maritime officials said on Monday. Officials said the boat was carrying about 70 migrants, many believed to be from Myanmar\u2019s persecuted Rohingya community trying to reach Malaysia, when it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-513852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n