PHUKET: The search for victims of the Pheonix sinking continued on Monday with patrols on beaches and an attempt to clear sand from the sunken boat and retrieve another body.
Tourism and Sports Minister Weerasak Kowsurat said Monday that divers would use portable blowers to move away the sand so they could get to the dead Chinese passenger trapped under the Phoenix, which sank in storm-tossed seas near Koh He last Thursday. It would be the 42nd body recovered by searchers.
He also said that if officials could turn the boat upright, more bodies might float and then be collected.
Officials from many organisations were also making air, sea and land patrols, looking for still-missing victims.
Mr Weerasak said they were hoping to find the bodies on the surface before they sank again, when the task would be made more difficult.
Police said six people were still unaccounted for as of Monday morning.
The Phoenix capsized and sank with 105 people aboard, mostly Chinese tourists, on July 5. Another tour boat and a jet ski also capsized off Phuket that day, but all 43 people on them were rescued.
Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon on Monday blamed the Chinese operators of the Phoenix for the tragedy. They had brought Chinese tourists to the boat and defied local officials' orders to suspend marine tours that day because of the rough seas, he said.
Authorities were taking legal action against Chinese tour companies operating through Thai proxies, Gen Prawit said.