A tourist motorboat was overturned at Manoc-Manoc village, Boracay Island in Aklan on Wednesday afternoon, October 3, leading to the death of three Taiwanese tourists and hospitalization of six other tourists-passengers, as revealed by the Philippine Coast Guard in an Inquirer.com news report.
According to said report, Kevin 2 was carrying around 30 Taiwanese tourists for an island-hopping tour when a squall—a “brief but violent sea storm”—hit the motorboat at around 1:45 p.m.
The fatalities declared dead on arrival were two women identified as 49-year-old Chang Hi Ling and 71-year-old Lai Yu Mei, as well as a 3-year-old girl named Chen Szu Ching.
Rescued by the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) were 27 Taiwanese nationals, of which 21 were said to have been in good condition after being treated at Don Ciriaco Tirol Memorial Hospital in Boracay. A Filipino crew member of the motorboat was also said to have been rescued by PCG.
Meanwhile, six Taiwanese nationals and another crew member remain confined at the Baptist Hospital in Caticlan, considered to be the gateway to the world-class island.
PCG-Caticlan revealed that all Taiwanese tourists wore life vests before the incident, but they are also investigating if the boat was overloaded.
Still in Boracay, two local tourists were also said to have drowned in a separate incident, which prompted the PCG-Caticlan station “to coordinate with the Malay municipal government and other concerned groups to discuss the issues at hand with an end view of preventing the occurrence of similar incidents in the future.”
