VIDEO: Sailors rescued after clinging to styrofoam boxes for four days
A crew of four sailors from a missing cargo ship have been rescued after spending four days adrift in the Bali Sea, clinging to styrofoam boxes.
The men were reported missing after Zidane Express was damaged by strong waves off the coast of Sapeken Island in Indonesia on Friday and lost power.
Coast guards launched a search and rescue operation as feared mounted for the missing crew, with assistance from local fishermen who kept lookout.
A fishing boat came across the men alive in the ocean four days later, exhausted but unharmed, holding onto a raft formed of styrofoam iceboxes.
In a media statement, National Search and Rescue Agency coordinator Wahyu Setya Budi said: “The four men were found safely about 63 miles from Boom Beach Banyuwangi and 61 miles from Sapeken Madura Harbour.”
Budi reveals the quick-thinking sailors acted swiftly as they decided to abandon their damaged ship — using a rope to tie the iceboxes into a makeshift raft before they plunged into the ocean. The men also stowed supplies of drinking water and dried food into the boxes.
Budi adds that the men, named in local media as Rusiyadi, Muhammad Ajim, Ansori, and Ali Sabibi, have received medical assistance and are now being returned to their families.
The Zidane Express ship departed from Boom Beach in Banyuwangi, heading for Sapeken Island in Madura, East Java Province on May 26. When it didn’t return two days later, as planned, locals reported the ship as missing.
