KOTA KINABALU, Jan 30 — In a new twist, Sabah police have confirmed today that only five people are still missing from the deadly boat tragedy off Kota Kinabalu.

Sabah police commissioner Datuk Ramli Din said that a glitch in their records meant that only 27 Chinese tourists boarded the ill-fated boat last Saturday headed towards Mengalum Island.

"Out of the 28, only 27 boarded the boat. Our investigations found that one of those who signed up cancelled it because they said it was overloaded,” he said during a press conference at the city police headquarters here.

Ramli said that Li Qun, a 33-year-old, and his family had all registered just under his name, but all of them decided not to go on the excursion.

"However, even though his family was going, only his name was registered. This means, at the moment, we are searching for four Chinese tourists and one local crew member,” he said.

Ramli said in light of the new information, they were not discounting the possibility of more discrepancies and there might be more or less people who are still unaccounted for.

"But what is confirmed, is that the local boat man is still missing and officially we are looking for four people,” he said.

Ramli said that the police will be looking into the welfare of the survivors and has appointment a liaison officer for each of the tourist onboard.

He said that of the 20 tourists who arrived back in Kota Kinabalu at 1.50am last night, 12 were mostly in good health and condition while and eight were in need of more medical attention due to sunburns, swollen limbs and difficulty walking.

They were sent to Queen Elizabeth Hospital last night for medical examinations and observation.

Of the three who had died, post mortem operation has been carried out on two.

On January 28, a catamaran carrying the 27 tourists and three boat crew were headed to Mengalum island from a private jetty in the city when it hit bad weather and capsized some eight nautical miles before reaching its destination.

Yesterday, the skipper, one crew and 23 of the tourist passengers were found, including the three who had died.

A multi-agency search party has been launched to scour the west coast of Sabah in search of the missing people.