Kuala Lumpur: Four European divers went missing off Malaysia’s southeast coast on Wednesday and authorities have launched a search, the coastguard said.
Two British men aged 14 and 46, an 18-year-old Frenchwoman and a 35-year-old Norwegian woman disappeared after going diving near a small island, they said.
A hunt involving boats from the coastguard, the police and the fisheries department was launched at 2:45pm (0645 GMT), said senior coastguard official Nurul Hizam Zakaria in a statement.
The island where they disappeared, Pulau Tokong Sanggol, is about 15 kilometres (nine miles), off the coast.
The area is popular with foreign and domestic visitors – there are resorts dotted along the coast and on nearby islands.
Diving accidents, while rare, do occasionally take place in Malaysia.
In 2013, a British tourist died when she was struck by a passing boat’s propeller while diving off resort islands in the South China Sea.
The tropical Southeast Asian nation’s white-sand beaches and lush rainforests have long made it a major draw, but the tourism industry was hit hard by travel curbs during the coronavirus pandemic.
The country’s borders reopened to foreign tourists last week after a two-year closure.
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