Deep - Sea Divers Tasked With Searching Inside Sunken Tour Boat Arrive In Hokkaido
A barge carrying deep-sea divers has arrived in Hokkaido, northern Japan. The divers are planning to search inside a tour boat that sunk with 26 people on board last month.
The KAZU I is lying on the seabed at a depth of about 120 meters. It ran into trouble off the Shiretoko Peninsula during a sightseeing cruise on April 23.
Fourteen passengers have been confirmed dead. Twelve others, including two crewmembers, remain missing.
The work barge is operated by a private salvage company. It arrived at the nearby port of Abashiri on Tuesday morning.
A method called saturation diving will be used during the search. Four divers will first enter a pressurized tank to get acclimatized to deep-sea conditions.
The vessel is expected to head to the site where the KAZU I sank, so the divers can begin searching as early as Thursday.
The Coast Guard says the divers will spend about two days on the deep-sea search. It says that effort will be followed by a study aimed at finding the best way to salvage the boat.
Members of the Coast Guard, the Self-Defense Forces and police are still looking for the missing in the sea and along the shoreline.