(Reuters) – Russian authorities said on Tuesday they had rescued a man whose tiny boat drifted for 67 days since August in waters edging the northwestern Pacific, but his brother and nephew died during the ordeal.
Social media images showed a thin, bearded man wearing a hooded jacket and orange emergency vest in a catamaran-like sailboat flying a red flag from a small pole.
“On Oct 14, a vessel was discovered in the waters of the Sea of Okhotsk,” legal authorities in Russia’s Far East said on the Telegram messaging app, referring to waters that sprawl over 1.58 mln sq km (610,000 sq miles).
“Two people died, one survived,” added the regional prosecutor’s office charged with handling transport issues. “He is receiving medical assistance.”
The boat with the man and bodies aboard was finally sighted by fishermen near the village of Ust-Khayruzovo, off the coast of the Kamchatka peninsula, the post added.
Authorities did not immediately identify the voyagers.
Russia’s SHOT Telegram channel said the boat was found about 1,000 km (621 miles) from its initial destination.
The legal authorities said two men, accompanied by the 15-year-old son of one, set sail on Aug. 9 from a cape in Khabarovsk Krai in the region, headed for the town of Okha on Sakhalin island.
“After a while, contact with them was lost, their location remained unknown,” they added.
The Baza Telegram channel close to Russia’s security services said the survivor, aged 46, was taken to hospital in serious condition, after his 49-year-old brother and the teenager had died while adrift.
A month-long search after the boat went astray proved unsuccessful, it added.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
