A 26-year-old British backpacker is missing, and presumed dead, after a fire ripped through a dive boat some six miles off the coast of Koh Tao in Thailand.
Alexandra Clarke had asked the guides on the boat if she could use the bathroom shortly before the blaze broke out in the engine room on the Davy Jones Locker vessel at around 9.15am on Sunday 16th March.
Also read: More dive-boat fires bedevil Thailand
A total of 22 people were on board the boat – 16 tourists, four dive instructors, a boat captain, and a crew member. All others on board have been accounted for.
Miss Clarke was originally listed as missing, but then a statement from Surat Thani police chief Pol Maj Gen Sermphan Sirikhong on Monday 17 March said that her body had been found on the burned-out vessel. However, further reports released on Tuesday 18 March said that divers had searched the wreckage of the boat and not found the Briton, so she was still classed as missing.
According to reports, the initial cause of the fire was related to a malfunction which occurred while the tanks were being filled with compressed air, however, the latest reports have said that the blaze broke out after a fuel tank overflowed as it was being filled during the journey.
Photo credit: Surat Thani Provincial Public Relations Office
Seems like a lot of things should be clarified before the vendor continues doing business? Compressor malfunction? Fueling while running an engine? Abandoning ship procedures?