UPDATE: Polish and Thai kayak pair still missing off Phuket
PHOTOS: Newshawk Phuket
As we enter day four of the search for 26 year old Mateusz Juszkiewicz from Poland and his female Thai friend, 23 year old Werakan Sirirakon, there is no update other than the pair are still missing.
Last evening Rawai’s mayor, Arun Solos revealed that the missing pair were wearing life vests when they set off for their short expedition to Koh Man from Ya Nui Beach last Saturday afternoon. He said he was hopeful that the pair would be found alive. But authorities are now holding grave fears for the safety of the missing couple despite the Mayor’s public optimism.
The extensive ocean search enters its fourth day today as rescuers continue to widen their search area.
Air and sea searches continued all yesterday with up to one hundred people involved in the land and sea search for a Polish tourist and his Thai girlfriend. They went missing after they, and their kayak, failed to return safely to Phuket on Saturday evening. Read the original story HERE.
Mateusz and Werakan managed to alert their friends that they were in difficulty with a mobile phone call before contact was lost with the pair as the others arrived back at Yanui Beach around 6.30pm on Saturday evening.
Three days of extensive searching, up to 30 nautical miles off the coast of Phuket, including around the Similans and Koh Racha, have not turned up any fresh sightings or information about the missing pair.
Conditions continue to be warm but there has been persistent moderate to fresh offshore winds over the past three days but abating a bit more today. But without fresh water, authorities suspect the pair would have perished if still marooned at sea.
When police received information about the incident on Saturday evening, a search was launched immediately by the Royal Thai Navy, the tourist police, the Phuket provincial public disaster mitigation office and Rawai municipal office. Efforts have concentrated on the sea currents and winds and where they may have carried the couple and their kayak.
