Eight foreign nationals drowned and 28 are still missing after a wooden boat they were on sank two miles from Sungai Air Hitam, off Banting, just after midnight.

Banting fire and rescue personnel arrived at the scene half-an-hour after a distress call was received at 12.24am.

The search and rescue teams were able to rescue 61 passengers out of the estimated 97 believed to be all Indonesians.

Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, Selangor police chief Abdul Samah Mat said the boat left the Carey Island port along the Peninsular’s coast for Tanjung Balai, Sumatera at 11pm last night.

The boat however sank in a storm some two nautical miles away from the estuary of Sungai Air Hitam.

    

Human trafficking angle

Abdul Samah said the survivors comprised 48 men, 12 women and a small girl. The Customs Department and the police are detaining the survivors.

“They were exhausted when rescued and police gave them all necessary aid,” he added.

He said most of the survivors held expired identity documents and one of them did not have any documents at all.

“We will definitely investigate this incident from a human trafficking perspective,” he said.

Abdul Samah said police recovered five dead bodies, four male and one female.

The Selangor Fire and Rescue Department later said another three more bodies, all male, were recovered at 7.15pm tonight bringing the death toll to eight.

    

Boat overloaded

Police are yet to identify the cause of the capsize but said the cargo cum passenger boat with a maximum capacity of 40 passengers was overloaded.

Abdul Samah said police will only able to determine the cause of the tragedy after salvaging and inspecting the boat which will also determine its operator.

Meanwhile, search and rescue (SAR) operations are ongoing to find the remaining missing passengers with the fire and rescue services department monitoring the coast.

Police have expressed confidence that the missing passengers still have a high chance of survival as the tragedy occurred less than 24 hours ago.