12 August 2024 , 16:11
443
0
A search and rescue operation for a Brit who fell 100 feet from the deck of the Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas cruise ship in the Adriatic last Friday has now been called off.
A desperate search for a Brit who fell 100 feet from a cruise ship into the Adriatic Sea has been called off.
Emergency services using planes and boats mounted a major search and rescue operation to find the person, believed to be a man, who disappeared four days ago. Croatian authorities said "a young Brit" from the Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas ship went missing in the early hours of Friday morning and hasn’t been seen since.
It is believed the Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas is on a seven day Greece-Croatia route, and the journey began on Saturday August 3. Although the exact details are unclear, the man - who hasn’t been named - is thought to have fallen from a height of at least 100 feet at around 4.30am local time.
The search operation has been concentrated in the area of the Vis archipelago in the southern waters off Croatia. There had been hope that the man would have been able to survive for longer due to the warmer water at this time of the year but now after several days the hope of finding him has dwindled.
Marin Keko, coordinator at the National Center for Coordination of Search and Rescue at Sea, told local outlet HRT: "We don’t know the condition of the young man who fell into the sea, but given that he is young, it is possible that he could survive even longer. We hope for a positive outcome, we don’t want to think negatively at all."
But the National Rescue Service in Croatia has now called off the search, and it follows Sanjn Dumanic, the president of the Croatian Sea Captains Association saying that they were losing hope of finding him. Mr Dumanic said: "Since the man has been in the sea for over 40 hours, we are already losing hope. We would all like him to be found, but 40 hours is a very long time and we are losing hope that this search will end successfully."
Nicole Bullock, who was travelling on the cruise ship, said she woke up to an emergency message blaring through the vessel. She wrote on X: "Woken up on the cruise ship around 3.40am to the emergency message ’Oscar Oscar Oscar off the port side’. Man overboard. Been watching the rescue efforts off my balcony all day, hoping for a positive outcome."