DOLPHIN PEARL

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Tanker stood by leaking fishing boat

The "Baltic Galaxy" on Aug 1, 2013, stood by a distressed boat of asylum seakers, but the Geelong-bound vessel was too large to safely evacuate the passengers. The "Baltic Galaxy" came to the emergency scene, then about 25 nautical miles off the Java coast, after an alert was issued by Australian Maritime Safety Authority in the morning. The alert was raised after the fishing boat initially continued moving south towards Christmas Island, although it was taking water and AMSA had warned its crew to turn back to land. An Indonesian search-and-rescue launch was en route to rescue the about 100 asylum-seekers and was expected to reach the fishing boat, adrift and leaking in medium seas in the southern Sunda Strait, late in the night. The boat was expected to be landed at Merak in Java early on Aug 2, and the asylum-seekers taken into Immigration Department custody.