Mersing: The mother of a French diver missing off the coast of Malaysia said she is “hoping for the best” as the search for the teenager and two other Europeans goes into its third day.
The trio and their instructor disappeared on Wednesday after going diving off a southern island.
The Norwegian instructor, 35-year-old Kristine Grodem, was rescued alive Thursday after drifting for miles, and was admitted to hospital in a stable condition.
Officials have expressed hope the others will be found alive, as they had surfaced from a dive before they went missing and were all said to have substantial experience.
Esther Molina, the mother of 18-year-old Alexia Alexandra Molina, a French national, also struck an optimistic note.
“We hear from experienced divers that the situation is positive, they’re above water, hopefully they’re together still,” she told AFP from the coastal town of Mersing, the base for search operations.
“We are hoping for the best. She’s a strong girl.”
The 57-year-old, who lives in Malaysia with her family, added authorities had been “efficient, we’ve been kept updated about the status of the search”.
The other two missing divers are a British man Adrian Peter Chesters, 46, and his 14-year-old son Nathan Renze Chesters, who is a Dutch citizen.
The search, which includes 10 boats, three helicopters and dozens of officials, resumed in the early hours today, Mersing district police chief Cyril Edward Nuing said.
“Until now, we have not received new sightings pertaining to the three missing divers,” he told a press conference.
Nuing added he still had “strong hope that the three divers can be recovered alive” given they are experienced divers.
Popular with tourists
By late afternoon there was still no news of the missing trio, however.
On one boat involved in the search, coastguard officers used binoculars to scan islands, beaches and the waters of the South China Sea, according to AFP journalists accompanying them.
Grodem had been instructing the divers close to a small island, Pulau Tokong Sanggol, about 15km off Malaysia’s southeast coast, when the accident happened.
After a dive lasting about 40 minutes, they surfaced but could not find their boat. They drifted together in strong currents, but ended up getting separated.
The captain of the boat who took them to the dive site has been arrested after testing positive for drugs.
Resort and boat operators in the area have been asked to halt all diving and snorkelling activities, a local official Shakib Ali said.
“This move is to give space and time to the currently ongoing search and rescue effort for the remaining three divers,” he said.
The area where they disappeared is popular with foreign tourists and domestic visitors with 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.
Malaysia’s borders reopened to foreign tourists on April 1 after a two-year closure because of the Covid-19 pandemic.