After a boat carrying 40 passengers capsized off the Florida coast, a single survivor was found.
The Coast Guard are still searching for other survivors after the boat, which left the island of Bimini in the Bahamas on Saturday night, overturned about 45 miles east of Fort Pierce Inlet State Park.
They were alerted by a Good Samaritan who found the surviving passenger clinging to the upturned vessel approximately 60 hours after it capsized. Coast Guard was informed by the survivor that the boat flipped after it encountered severe weather conditions.
None of the crew wore life jackets.
Coast Guard characterized it as a possible human smuggling case.
Officials posted on Twitter, that they’re searching for both sea and air personnel in an area of approximately 135 miles spanning from Bimini to Fort Pierce Inlet.
After a boat carrying human smuggling boats crashed off the Florida coast, on Saturday night, 39 were rescued by the US Coast Guard.
Coast Guard crew members began searching for survivors after Good Samaritans reported that one was still clinging on to the boat.
It traveled approximately 45 miles to Fort Pierce Inlet State Park.
Since the Bahamas islands have been used by migrants as a way to get to Florida and the United States,
They often try to use weather breaks to cross the ocean, but they are frequently dangerously overloaded and susceptible to capsize. Over the years, there have been many deaths.
The Coast Guard watches over the waters of Haiti, Cuba, Cuba and Bahamas.
The majority of migrants come from Haiti and Cuba, but Royal Bahamas Defense Force reported earlier this month that it had apprehended migrants from Colombia and Ecuador.
Coast Guard officers found 88 Haitians trapped in a packed sail freighter west coast of Great Inagua.
Last weekend, the Coast Guard released a statement stating that “Navigating Florida straits and Windward Passages… can be extremely hazardous and may result in loss or injury to life.”
Coast Guard continue their investigation and call it suspected human smuggling.
Officials stated on Twitter that they were searching both by air and water for a 135-mile stretch of land stretching from Bimini to Fort Pierce Inlet
Before it was overturned on Saturday, the boat left Bimini Island in the Bahamas.
After their boat was swept off the coast of Key West by Tropical Storm Elsa, 13 Coast Guard personnel rescued them.
According to survivors, 22 of their crew members had been taken with them when they left Cuba. Nine others were drowned in the ocean.
A second boat used to smuggle 18 migrants off California’s coast capsized last May. It killed one man and left 11 people injured.
The people on the vessel were reportedly wearing ‘flotation devices’, according to San Diego Lifeguard Chief Gartland.
Gartland stated that they had witnessed a smuggling incident this morning. Customs and border control were also present on the scene.
“They left people in the sea, and then they decided that the vessel would come to the shore. Then it capsized at the shore.