Heavy rains fall as ships, locals search Myanmar crash site

SAN HLAN, Myanmar — Navy ships and fishing boats navigated high waves in bad weather Friday to retrieve bodies and debris from the waters off Myanmar’s coast where a military plane carrying 122 people, including 15 children, crashed two days earlier.

Waves were 2.5 metres (more than 8 feet) high in the Andaman Sea, but eight navy ships and 20 local fishing boats were searching, the military commander in chief’s office said. The fishermen were using their nets to search in the water and the navy ships were using sonar.

The plane took off Wednesday afternoon from Myeik, also known as Mergui, and was heading for Yangon when contact was lost southwest of Dawei, formerly known as Tavoy.

During Thursday’s search, monsoon downpours drenched rescue workers and the people gathered on the beach at San Hlan village in Laung Lone township, which was a landing point for recovery operations. The larger boats and ships were fetching the bodies then moving them to smaller boats to haul them into shallow water at the beach, where soldiers put the body bags on stretchers and carried them to waiting trucks. The heavy rain and rough seas that delayed those efforts was continuing Friday.