Monday, November 26, 2007

Grief, tributes for dragon boaters

Monday • November 26, 2007
ANSLEY NG
ansley@mediacorp.com.sg
MediaCorp Press (Singapore)


It was clear from Friendster profiles that the five men from the national dragon boating team loved their sport.

Many of the photos that Jeremy Goh, 24, Reuben Kee, 23, and engineer Poh Boon San, 27, posted on the networking website showed them posing with teammates and medals they had won.

This was before Friday's tragedy abruptly doused that flame.

After finishing a race on Cambodia's Tonle Sap, the trio, along with physical education teacher Stephen Loh, 31, and student Chee Wei Cheng, 20, vanished when their dragon boat capsized in a freak accident. Seventeen other Singapore teammates were rescued.

Yesterday, the bodies of the five were fished out of the murky river, following a 30-hour search involving about 200 fishermen, soldiers and a team from the Singapore Navy's diving unit. Two of the bodies had drifted some 4km from the accident site.

On their Friendster accounts, people who knew the dead dragon boaters wrote messages that paid tribute to their passion for the sport.

"So long captain. It's an honour to have fought many races with you in NYP (Nanyang Polytechnic) and Safsa," wrote Mr Goh's friend, Darren Goh.

Mr Goh — the youngest of three children, whose other interests included motocross racing and photography — was the vice-captain of NYP's dragon boating team.

Distraught relatives arrived in the capital Phnom Penh on Saturday, accompanied by counsellors from the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Health.

One by one, they entered a makeshift tent outside the Calmette Hospital to identify their loved ones, reported Channel NewsAsia.

Wails of grief rang out as they had one final look before the bodies were embalmed; many had to be supported by relatives.

The five bodies are likely to be flown back to Singapore today after relatives have conducted prayers at the accident site.

Family members were struggling to come to terms with their loss.

Mr Poh's two elder brothers flew to Cambodia on Saturday while their parents waited for news at home. The call that came at noon yesterday, telling him his son's body had been found, dashed Mr Poh Bock Tho's hopes.

"I had been hoping that he was all right and that somebody had saved him. But it has happened and there is nothing we can do now," he told Channel NewsAsia.

Mr Loh's father, retiree Victor Loh, described his son as "a very fit and focused person" whose "life revolved around his work and leadership training courses that he taught in school".

The 31-year-old had made a mid-career switch from being an engineer just six months ago. National Junior College principal Virginia Cheng described him as a "teacher of promise".

"The kids loved him," she said. "When they said he was among the five who were missing, that was a terrible moment for us."

Mr Goh, who was a second-year full-time student with the SIM-University of London programme for Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Business, was popular among schoolmates.

"He is very humorous and likeable and brightens the mood of those around him," said Mr Aaron Ang, a third-year business student. Six other SIM students on the dragon boat crew in Cambodia survived.

The Singapore team were in Phnom Penh to take part in the Asean Cambodian Traditional Boat Race, with 10 teams from the region.

As they were rowing back to the start line, their boat capsized after reportedly being hit by a sudden wave in the seemingly calm waters of the river.

The 22 crew, who were not wearing life vests, were thrown off and many had to cling onto a pontoon to avoid being swept under by the current. It was not clear if the five who drowned all knew how to swim.

Cambodian official Nhim Vanda, from the National Committee for Disaster Management, said the tragedy occurred due to a strong whirlpool near the docking area.

In a letter to the president of the Singapore Dragon Boat Association on Saturday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had said he was "deeply saddened" by the accident and expressed his sympathies to the families.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't thing the problem is they don't know how to swim. They seem to be people who's interested in water sport; Plus, according to one of the article, the team elected not to wear the life jacket; Thus, they are confident with swimming or, at minimum, be able to keep their head out of the water should they fell in. On top of that, I remember reading that one of the boater was even a gym teacher.

I thing something happened to them as they fell in the water. It could be a huge piece of object such as a three or even a bigger boat that was abandoned from other area of Tonle Sap floating just below the surface as it washed away to the Mekong river that hitting their boat, and as their fell in some of them hitting that object hard and unable to swim up to the surface while others just getting minor cut and bruise. That is one theory. Second theory is the five boaters were get suck down to the bottom by the swirl current. In either case, we might be able to see the swirl or an object in the photo, if we filter out the water surface ripples.

Anonymous said...

Cambodia has a good reputation of recovery operation-- but notorious reputation with rescue operation. The aftermath: Devastation and tragety.