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Pacific: stranded on an island, sailors saved by their message on the beach
Pacific: stranded on an island, sailors saved by their message on the beach
(franceinfo)
Three sailors were rescued on Sunday April 7 while they were stranded on a small island in the Pacific. The message for help they had written on the beach was spotted by a military plane.
They owe their salvation to their ingenuity, to the four letters forming the word “HELP” (“help” in French) which they drew on the beach using palm leaves. Surrounded by two American coast guards, the three Micronesian sailors display smiles of relief, after more than a week stranded on a small desert island in Peaceful.
A drinking water well on the island
Their call for help was spotted by an American military plane which flew over the area on Sunday April 7, alerted to their disappearance. Communication was then established, and emergency services were initiated. A team of U.S. Coast Guardsmen arrived two days later and managed to rescue the three sailors, safe and sound. They survived by eating coconut meat and drinking clean water from a well on the island. They therefore remained prisoners of this tiny Pacific atoll called Pikelot for eight days. The sailors had set off from the neighboring island of Polowat, about 180 km away. Their boat was damaged.
