The Thai Navy confirmed on Monday the death of 18 people as a result of the capsizing of a warship a week ago, while search and rescue teams entered the eighth day of work today to locate eleven crew members who remain missing.
The Navy reported through its social networks that, of the 18 fatalities left by the sinking of the military ship HTMS Sukhothai, ten of them have already been identified, while eight corpses have undergone forensic tests to confirm their identities.
The HTMS Sukhothai, a corvette ship, sank on the night of December 18 about 37 kilometers off the coast of the Thai province of Prachuap Khiri Khan, southwest of Bangkok, with 105 crew members on board and after being hit by a strong temporary, which caused water to enter the engine room and power outages.
A total of eleven sailors are still missing, so the relief groups have entered the eighth day of intense searches in the region this Monday, with a team that includes specialized agents, divers, sniffer dogs, volunteers and vehicles such as boats, drones and helicopters.
Of the 105 crew members who were on board the ship at the time of the incident -whose causes are being investigated- 58 have been rescued without major injuries and 18 had to be admitted to hospitals in the region and are recovering.
Preliminary investigations indicate that the ship did not have enough life jackets for all passengers, while doubts have arisen about the ship’s seaworthiness conditions, which supposedly had a hull maintenance review pending.
These factors led the opposition to announce that it will submit an urgent motion for a debate on the incident in Parliament and call for the resignation of Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha as Defense Minister, a position he is simultaneously holding, to “demonstrate his responsibility “.