Tragedy.

Hopes fade as night falls

Reports by PRISCILLA DIELENBERG, DERRICK VINESH, TAN SIN CHOW, WINNIE YEOH and ANN TAN

GEORGE TOWN: It was a tragic scene at the Macallum Street Ghaut as relatives and friends waited anxiously for news of the schoolboys still missing at sea.
Then, some schoolmates received an SMS that one of the boys had been saved by a fisherman. There were claps and cheers as hopes are lifted.
It was a heart-wrenching moment when joy turned to devastation about 10 minutes later when they learnt that the news was not true.

Spiritual help: A woman praying after the search and rescue team failed to locate the missing students off Macallum Street Ghaut yesterday.

The families were reduced to tears again as they waited in vain, some on their knees and praying, as the search parties came back at dusk and called off the search.
Earlier in the day, the body of Jason Ch’ng was identified. His family members broke down and had to be helped into a tent nearby.
Ch’ng’s body was found under a boat not far from the Macallum Street Ghaut shore at 2.45pm. He was still wearing a life jacket.
State Tourism Development and Culture Committee chairman Danny Law Heng Kiang, who is Penang International Dragon Boat Festival (PIDBF) committee chairman, also broke down soon after he arrived at the scene about 1pm.
Law said he knew the team, which was active in dragon boat racing and had been taking part in the PIDBF races.
The team had been training for two boating events to be held simultaneously in July — the 1st Club Crew Championship for Common-wealth Countries and the 31st Penang International Dragon Boat Festival.
Penang Forward Sports Club chairman C.H. Lim said his club was helping the team train for the events’ junior categories to be held at the Teluk Bahang Dam from July 23 to 25.

After the tragedy: A dragon boat team member sobbing uncontrollably as he learns of Aik Siang’s death.

“This training session was not an intensive one, it was just regular training,” he said.
Lim said the school’s dragon boat team had been set up in the 1980s and that his club had been providing free training for the team over the past five years.
He said the team last took part in the Penang Pesta Open Dragon Boat Race 2009 last month.
State Education Department human resources management and development sector head Osman Hussain said all school clubs should inform the department of their activities outside of school, especially those that were of high-risk, like boat racing.
He said the school’s dragon boat club had earlier informed the department about training at the sea off Tanjung Bungah to Gurney Drive but had not informed it about the new venue.

Sports club members helping to bail out water from the capsized boat.

 

Teacher’s first trip turns out to be his last

BUTTERWORTH: Teacher Chin Aik Siang (pic, left) joined a few students for their dragon boat training for the first time yesterday. It was to be his last ever outing.

Aik Siang, 28, drowned after the boat capsized during the training exercise off Weld Quay.
“We’ve never seen him before. It was his maiden outing at sea with his students,” Penang Forward Sports Club member Lee Kean Ewe said.
Student Kuah Zi Xun, 17, said Aik Siang only took up the post as the school’s dragon boat team adviser recently.
He had been teaching Mathematics and Science at Chung Ling High School for a year.
Aik Siang’s father Chin Joo Mong, 60, a durian seller, said the youngest of four siblings was especially close to his mother, Lee Bee Hong, 58.
“I cannot believe he is gone. He was having dinner with her last night, and now he has left us,” Joo Mong said when met at his Jalan Mohd Saad flat in Bagan Jermal yesterday.
He said his son was obedient and did not have any bad habits.
After finishing teaching in the afternoon school session, he would usually return home, he said.
Joo Mong said Bee Hong told him that Aik Siang left home at 6am yesterday for co-curricular activities in school yesterday.
He said Aik Siang, who pursued a degree in Education in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) had originally wanted to become a doctor but later changed his mind and opted for teaching.
“I do not blame anyone over the incident. He was just doing his job,” Joo Mong said.
Meanwhile, Jason Ch’ng (pic, right), the student who died, was very active in school.
“Ch’ng was president of the Leo Club, secretary of the Peer Counselling Society and vice-president of the Judo Club. He was also involved in organising a forthcoming charity food fair for the Leo Club,” said his good friend Eric Tan Leong Yik, 17. He said they had last met during a futsal match on Saturday.
Tan claimed that one of his friends had been the first to alert the police as soon as he came ashore.
SM Chung Ling Alumni vice-president Teoh Peick Seong said the students and families affected by the tragedy would be given counselling.
The school’s principal, Chua Yau Chou offered his condolences to the families of those who died.

Teacher and student drown, four missing after dragon boat mishap

Four students missing in boat mishap
GEORGE TOWN: A dragon boat training session involving Chung Ling High School students ended in tragedy when a teacher and a student drowned after the vessel capsized in the waters off Macallum Street Ghaut here.
Four students are still missing.

Cry of anguish: A relative crying by the seaside as search and rescue team members scour the waters off Macallum Street Ghaut for the missing rowers. — GOH GAIK LEE and CHIN CHENG YEANG / The Star

The boat with 18 people on board had become unstable after being hit by strong waves and it crashed into a tugboat moored nearby. It capsized after it was hit by a second wave at 9am yesterday.
The authorities mounted a search and rescue operation involving some 100 personnel to locate the missin g students. Rescue operations were called off at 7pm when night fell although surveillance was still being conducted at press time.
Fifteen students, two instructors from the Penang Forward Sports Club (which had adopted the school team) and a teacher were on board when tragedy struck. It is learnt that only 12 of the 18 on board wore life jackets.
The body of teacher Chin Aik Siang, 28, was found at 11am while that of Jason Ch’ng, 17, was found at 2.50pm. Ch’ng was among those wearing life jackets.
The missing students have been identified as Brendon Yeoh, Goh Yi Zhiang, Cheah Zi Jun, all 17, and Wang Yong Xiang, 16.
They had gone out to sea for their weekly training in preparation for a competition in July. The race has always been held at the Teluk Bahang dam but the venue was changed last year to the Bandar Sri Pinang fisherman’s jetty off Jelutong Expressway.
Student Kuah Zi Xun, who was sitting at the rear of the boat, said the group was on its final lap when the vessel was hit by a strong wave.
“It then rammed into a tugboat. A second strong wave hit us and overturned the boat. All of us were thrown out. A strong undercurrent pulled all of us down,” he said.

So far two bodies have been found.

Zi Xun said only 12 of them managed to swim up to the surface and stayed afloat.
Some of them swam some 400m to the shore while others were rescued by passing fishermen in two boats.
Three students were admitted at the Penang Hospital for minor injuries while another was discharged after receiving outpatient treatment.
Devastated parents of the missing boys wept uncontrollably near the scene.
Penang Forward Sports Club chairman C.H. Lim said the team’s coach from his club, Tan Kok Thek, told him that the team had paused in the middle of the sea as the new rowers were tired.
“He said there was a sudden undercurrent and the helmsman lost control. It then hit a tugboat.”
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said 16 boats from various government agencies were conducting the surface patrols.
Search and Rescue Operations head Mohd Razam Taja Rahim said the scuba unit went as far down as 12m in their search.
“Two bodies which were recovered earlier had their life jackets on. They were found some 50m apart. Some of the survivors who were pulled to safety were not wearing life jackets,” he said.

Students and families of dragon boat tragedy to be counselled

PENANG: The students and families affected by Sunday's dragon boat tragedy here will be given trauma counselling, said Sekolah Menengah Chung Ling Alumni vice president Teoh Peick Seong.
"I hope the families of the victims will be strong in light of what has happened," Teoh told reporters here.
Meanwhile, school principal Chua Yau Chou offered his condolences to the families of those who died in the tragedy.
"The school's management will launch a probe on how this tragedy could have happened," he said.
Eric Tan Leong Yit, 17, said his friend, who survived the tragedy, was the first to alert the police on the incident as soon as he came ashore.
"However, it took the police 45 minutes to arrive. It seems like the police initially did not believe it was a genuine emergency call," he told reporters at the scene.
In the incident, a teacher and a student drowned and four other students went missing after a dragon boat carrying 18 people capsized in waters about 100 metres offshore Lebuh Macallum here at 10.20am.
Search and rescue (SAR) teams so far have recovered the bodies of the student Jason Ch'ng, 17, and the teacher Chin Ai Fang, in his 20s, while police named those missing as Brandon Yeoh, 17, Yong Xiang, 16, Koh Yiz Hiang, 17, and Cheah Zi Jun, 17.
The teacher, two instructors and 15 students were on a training stint from 8am when the boat was struck by a wave some two hours later and capsized. - BERNAMA

Dragon boat tragedy: All bodies recovered (Update 2)

By TAN SIN CHOW

GEORGE TOWN: The search party has found the bodies of all remaining victims of the dragon boat tragedy on Sunday.
The bodies of Wang Yong Xian, 16, and Cheah Zi Jun, 17 were found a few metres away from one another at the seafront of Tanjung City Marina at 4.25pm on Monday.
Earlier on Monday, the body of student Goh Yi Zhang, 17 was found at the seafront of Tanjung City Marina, in waters off Macallum Street Ghaut, at 8am, some 1km from the site of the dragon boat crash.
The body of Brendon Yeoh, also 17, was found at 12.10pm near where Goh’s body was found.
A few parents rushed to identify Goh’s body when it was brought to the shore and his parents broke down upon seeing that it was their son.
The search and rescue operations involving about 100 personnel from various departments, agencies and non-governmental organisations began at 7am Monday morning.
On Sunday, the search party found the body of school teacher Chin Aik Siang, 28 and student Jason Ch’ng, 17.
In the incident, the vessel carrying 18 students and a teacher capsized about 9am when the team was training for a dragon boat competition.


 http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/1/18/nation/20100118093525&sec=nation
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/1/17/nation/20100117194151&sec=nation
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/1/18/nation/5493750&sec=nation
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/1/18/nation/5493749&sec=nation
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/1/18/nation/5493748&sec=nation