However, he said for now, focus should be given to the efforts to find the five other victims still missing.

“I view seriously the capsized boat tragedy in Sabah and I want a detailed investigation to be carried out to identify the cause of the incident,” he said in his latest posting on Facebook and Twitter.

The prime minister also called on all quarters to adhere to the rules and guidelines set by the government to ensure safety.

The boat ferrying 30 people comprising three crew members and 27 tourists from China was reported to have capsized due to strong winds and big waves at 10am on Saturday morning, an hour after it left the Tanjung Aru jetty in the state capital.

As of yesterday, 22 people, including two of the crew members, were rescued, while three others were dead.

The search involves the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), Royal Malaysian Navy and Royal Malaysian Air Force, as well as the marine police personnel. They have also received the cooperation of the Brunei marine authority.

The MMEA had identified the six people who are missing. Five of the missing were tourists and one is a crew, it said.

MMEA said the tourists were Sheng Jiang Jiang (male, 50), Dong Mei (female, age not given), Li Qun (gender and age not given), Luo Hong Yuan (male, 51) and Lu Gua Hang (male, 25) while the crewman is Absoy Kasim (male, age not given).

However, Sabah police later said Li Qun was not on board the boat although he had registered for the trip. This brings the number on the boat to 27 passengers and not 28 as earlier reported. The number missing is now five, not six.

The MMEA also identified the third of the dead tourists as Xie Luo (male, 48). It had named the other two earlier as He Run Yuan (female, 46) and Zhang Xioa Kun (male, age not given).