JAKARTA – Four Australian tourists had been rescued after being missing for two days in the waters off Indonesia’s Aceh province, the daddy of one of the crucial Australians mentioned Tuesday.
Peter Foote, the daddy of Elliot Foote, who had traveled to Indonesia to rejoice his thirtieth birthday with buddies, mentioned he gained a textual content message from his son pronouncing he’s ok.
“It says: ‘Hey Dad, Elliot here. I’m alive. Safe now. Love you. Chat later,’” Peter Foote mentioned at a news convention on Tuesday. “It’s nice, it’s excellent news. I’ll have to speak to him and need to see pictures and notice what he looks as if. It’s all excellent.”
A wooden speedboat carrying the four Australians and three Indonesians ran into bad weather on Sunday. The details of how they ended up in the sea remain unclear.
There is no information about three Indonesians who were in the same boat. A search and rescue team expanded its focus area and added more boats and planes to look for them, officials said Tuesday.
Elliot Foote told his father that he’d paddled his surfboard to an island to raise the alarm, and that the other three Australians were found clinging to their boards at sea.
Elliot Foote, his partner Steph Weisse, and friends Will Teagle and Jordan Short, along with the three Indonesians, were in the boat in the waters around Sarang Alu and Banyak islands. They were part of a group of 12 Australians and five Indonesians in two boats who were traveling to Pinang Island, a destination known for its pristine beach and good waves for surfing.
The boats left Nias island, which is located around 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Indonesia’s Sumatra island, on Sunday afternoon and experienced bad weather with very heavy rain during the trip.
Peter Foote said he expected his son and friends would continue the final eight days of their surfing vacation.
In July, an overloaded passenger boat capsized off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing 15 people.
In 2018, an overcrowded ferry with about 200 people on board sank in a lake in North Sumatra province, killing 167 people. In one of the country’s worst recorded disasters, an overcrowded passenger ship sank in February 1999 with 332 people aboard. Only 20 people survived.
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Associated Press journalist Rod McGuirk wrote from Canberra, Australia.
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