Search continues for 3rd person after 2 dead in Fiji's barge accident

SUVA, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Fijian police, supported by Fijian rescuers and island villagers, continued on Wednesday their search for the third victim after two foreigners died in a landing barge accident which happened in the western part of Fiji on Tuesday.

According to a police statement on Wednesday, the Fijian police resumed on Wednesday an aerial search for the missing person and the bodies of the two South Korean nationals who died during the accident have been airlifted to a hospital in Lautoka, the second largest city of the South Pacific island state.

The landing barge with 12 persons on board including crew and passengers, which belongs to All Engineering in Lautoka, left Lautoka at around 2:00 p.m. local time on Monday and headed for Bukama in the Yasawa Group which is an archipelago of about 20 volcanic islands in the Western Division of Fiji, but the barge Kaiwai, which was transporting building materials for a resort under construction, went down in the rough seas off Bukama island in Yasawa early Tuesday.

The two dead and one missing, all South Korean nationals, are believed to have been asleep in the vehicles onboard when the accident happened. One of the South Korean victim was working for Grace Roads International while the other was a 36-year-old mechanic of Lautoka.

A police spokesperson said they could not draw assumptions on what caused the barge to sink and investigations were continuing.

Meanwhile, there remains a heavy rain alert in force for most parts of Fiji for the next few days.

Fiji has entered the cyclone season from Nov. 1, 2017, that will end on April 30, 2018, and the cyclone season outlook for 2017 to 2018 in the state indicates a possibility of at least four to six tropical cyclones to form in the Pacific region alone. Enditem