SACRAMENTO: At least eight people have died after two boats capsized off the coast of California, emergency officials have said, with officials suspecting that people smugglers were using the craft.
According to details, San Diego Fire and Rescue officials received a 911 emergency call at around 11.30 pm on Saturday local time.
Authorities responded to the scene on Saturday at around 11:30 pm local time after someone on a separate panga boat, an outboard motor-powered small fishing boat, called 911 emergency service to report victims in the water, the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department said.
The first rescuers failed to access the beach because of the high tide and had to wade through “knee to waist-deep water,” the release said.
The department said that lifeguards initially only spotted seven bodies but then found another with assistance from the US Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operations.
According to the release, the bodies were transferred to the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s office.
Agencies response to boats capsize incident
Several agencies responded to the incident, including the fire-rescue department, the San Diego Police Department, US Customs and Border Protection, and the US Coast Guard, the agency said.
Officials said Coast Guard and border protection officials are scheduled to hold a joint news conference about the incident on Sunday.
Rescuers set off to the beach while using GPS coordinates to locate the woman’s phone and arrived to find two capsized boats and bodies spread across hundreds of meters of the coast.
Several crews searched the area in the water and from the air, but thick fog overnight hampered their search efforts. The search also continued on Sunday.
Daniel Eddy, deputy chief of operations of San Diego Fire Rescue, said debris could be found all along Black’s Beach.
