Students and families of dragon boat tragedy to be counselled

PENANG: The students and families affected by Sunday's dragon boat tragedy here will be given trauma counselling, said Sekolah Menengah Chung Ling Alumni vice president Teoh Peick Seong.

"I hope the families of the victims will be strong in light of what has happened," Teoh told reporters here.

Meanwhile, school principal Chua Yau Chou offered his condolences to the families of those who died in the tragedy.

"The school's management will launch a probe on how this tragedy could have happened," he said.

Eric Tan Leong Yit, 17, said his friend, who survived the tragedy, was the first to alert the police on the incident as soon as he came ashore.

"However, it took the police 45 minutes to arrive. It seems like the police initially did not believe it was a genuine emergency call," he told reporters at the scene.

In the incident, a teacher and a student drowned and four other students went missing after a dragon boat carrying 18 people capsized in waters about 100 metres offshore Lebuh Macallum here at 10.20am.

Search and rescue (SAR) teams so far have recovered the bodies of the student Jason Ch'ng, 17, and the teacher Chin Ai Fang, in his 20s, while police named those missing as Brandon Yeoh, 17, Yong Xiang, 16, Koh Yiz Hiang, 17, and Cheah Zi Jun, 17.

The teacher, two instructors and 15 students were on a training stint from 8am when the boat was struck by a wave some two hours later and capsized. - BERNAMA