Hope fades for missing Singaporean rowers in Cambodia

Nov 24, 2007, 8:19 GMT

Phnom Penh - Hopes of finding five young Singaporean university graduates who were swept up in strong currents after their wooden longboat capsized during annual Water Festival river races in the capital Phnom Penh was fading, an official said Saturday.

At least 150 rescuers had formed teams to try to locate the five, who were part of a 22-member boat racing team who were thrown into the fast flowing Tonle Sap River late Friday afternoon while trying to dock.

'There were 22 people on board. We rescued 17 immediately but five have disappeared and we haven't found them yet. It is becoming increasingly urgent,' Daun Penh district governor Sok Sambath said on the telephone.

The five were recent university graduates who had joined a number of teams from overseas to compete in Cambodia's annual races to celebrate the end of the monsoon season.

Despite the precarious balance of the narrow wooden boats, some 440 of which are taking part in three days of racing this year, fatalities are unusual.

However a fierce typhoon whipping the coast of neighbouring Vietnam has made conditions particularly choppy this year, and the Tonle Sap can form whirlpools and downward currents just past the finish line where it meets the Mekong and Tonle Bassac waterways in a three-way confluence.

Police taking part in the search said Saturday they were becoming less confident of finding the young rowers alive with every passing hour.