WORLD : 130 Boat People Drown in China Sea
About 130 Vietnamese boat people apparently drowned after a Japanese tanker collided with their overloaded 30-foot boat in the South China Sea, Japanese officials reported today.
Authorities said first reports of the March 8 accident did not emerge until Monday, when 35 survivors of the accident on the high seas between Vietnam and Malaysia arrived in the port of Yokohama. The refugees said their wooden ship was carrying 165 people when it struck the propeller of the 239,000-ton Japanese tanker Nissei Maru, said Nagasaki refugee center official Masanami Nakatsukasa. The boat had left Long An in southern Vietnam for Malaysia on March 4, he said.
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