SINGAPORE, July 13 — The water search operation for the missing man in yesterday’s boat fire near the mouth of the Singapore River was called off at 2am this morning.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said it will continue to dispatch its resources every two hours to look for “anything that surfaces”.
The bumboat, part of a fleet run by the Singapore River Cruise for its river taxi service, caught fire early yesterday evening.
An eyewitness reported seeing a man jumping off the burning vessel at the time.
Images and videos of the burning boat, with thick black smoke billowing into the sky, spread quickly online yesterday.
The SCDF said it was alerted to the incident at 6.26pm and extinguished the fire using two water jets from the river bank.
There were no other reported missing persons or injuries.
Divers from the Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (DART) were dispatched to search for the missing man as his relatives, including his mother, waited at a cordoned-off area at the nearby Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay on last night.
The SCDF said it was using various methods to search for the man. One method involves point diving to a depth of about four metres. SCDF divers also used a circular search pattern from the point where the person was last seen, with the search team moving in a grid.
However, search efforts were hampered by the poor underwater visibility at night, said the SCDF. Also affecting visibility was the deep silt present on the river bed. — TODAY
