GEORGE TOWN: The sports utility vehicle that fell off the Penang Bridge has been retrieved.
Rescue personnel started the actual operation to hoist the 1.5-tonne car from the sea at around 5.45pm on Tuesday (Jan 22), and took about 20 minutes to bring it up onto the bridge.
The car, which is in a badly-mangled state, was hoisted using four cables attached to a crane.
The recovery team grew solemn upon seeing a lifeless body, believed to be that of Moey Yun Peng, inside the mangled car.
Initially, the first harness that divers strapped around the car underwater snapped before the wreckage could even surface.
The divers then went down a second time with a larger harness, and were successful this time.
“We had to wait until the tide was at the lowest and the current slowed down, before we could safely dive in and strap the car,” said one of the recovery personnel on the bridge, who declined to be named.
Scores of curious onlookers gathered around the vicinity of the rescue operation.
The wreckage was submerged at a depth of about 9m, about 15m away from where it went over the barrier.
The SUV plunged into the sea after a collision with a black car at 2.54am on Sunday (Jan 20).
The driver of the vehicle has been identified as college student Moey, 20.
