13 tourists rescued after disaster
Survivors drank their urine, swam to volcanic island
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-08-19 03:31 GMT
Sape, Indonesia: Thirteen people lost at sea for two days when their tourist boat sank in Indonesia were rescued on Monday after a horrific ordeal that had forced other survivors to swim to a volcanic island and drink their own urine.
Two Spanish men were still missing after the boat, which was also carrying an Indonesian crew, sank on Saturday as it made the long voyage from Lombok island to Komodo island, a popular tourist destination.The vessel went down slowly, breaking up into pieces, close to tiny Sangeang island after running into a reef and being hit by a storm.
But, there was no communications equipment on board to radio for help. A first group of 10 foreigners of various nationalities, including Britons, Germans and Italians, was rescued on Sunday.
A survivor told how they perched on the roof of the boat for hours as it sank, and eventually decided to swim to an island on the horizon, even though a volcano on it was emitting smoke at the time.
Bertrand Homassel said it took hours to swim to the island, but they had no choice as the vessel’s single lifeboat only had room for a handful of people.