A crewman who survived the wreck of U.S.-owned drilling ship in Typhoon Gay's 100-mph winds recalled leaping into the sea and watching a companion washed from a life raft by a huge wave.
The search for 84 crewmen missing from the 5,373-ton Seacrest continued Tuesday. Six survivors have been rescued and seven bodies found.The Seacrest capsized Saturday in the Gulf of Thailand during the typhoon, the worst storm to hit Thailand in three decades. About 443 fishermen were still reported missing, press reports said. The government death toll on land was 31, but one local official put the number at 71.
"All I remember is the sound of swirling wind. The darkness, the rain, the waves. And every now and then, the screams for help," Chalit Duangpakdee, a Seacrest survivor, said in an interview published by the English-language Bangkok Post Tuesday.
The Thai kitchen worker said the ship was buffeted by huge waves and an alarm went off to abandon ship. He grabbed a life jacket, jumped into the sea with many other crew members and managed to secure himself with rope inside a life raft.
A foreign crew member who also climbed into the lifeboat but had not tied himself down was swept away.
After several hours, Chalit was picked up by a Thai fishing boat, he told the newspaper.
The ship's owner, Unocal, Tuesday identified two more of the dead: Ed Seliger, the ship's West German captain, and Delvin Irby, an American tool pusher from Mississippi.
Eyewitnesses reportedly told Unocal that nearly all crew had abandoned the ship after the alarm and signal to do so had been given. But the captain and three others remained in the ship's wheelhouse, Unocal said in a press release.
A team of investigators from Los Angeles-based Unocal is investigating why the ship failed to withstand the high winds and seas and whether it was given adequate warning of the typhoon's approach.
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Storm's toll mounts
The toll from Typhoon Gay mounted Tuesday with officials reporting more than 500 sailors and 100 ships lost at sea, including an American drill ship whose captain went down with the vessel.
A total of 101 fishing boats were confirmed sunk with 30 others missing from the typhoon that ripped through the Gulf of Thailand Friday and Saturday, said Capt. Piya Thomya, a Thai Navy rescue information official. Piya declined to estimate the number of fishermen missing.
A report issued by the Thai Fisheries Department, however, said 97 fishing boats were sunk and 443 fishermen were missing and feared dead.
Sucharn Pongnua, governor of Chumpon, the hardest hit province in southern Thailand, said at least another 71 people were killed in villages battered by the storm.