MADANG – A rescue mission has found 11 people who have been reported missing at sea for almost two weeks off northern Papua New Guinea.

The group of people, including three students, were located drifting near West New Britain by Maritime Search and Rescue after they failed to arrive on Pana Island, in Madang province on January 29.

The Acting Director of the Disaster and Emergency services in Madang, Rudolph Mongalee, says nine people were found on board the boat while two of the group swam a long distance in the open sea to get help.

“They were drifting towards the small island known as Vitu and those two, they swam all the way to that island and that’s where they set off the alarm that the boat was drifting towards West New Britain.”

Mongalee says all survivors are in good condition.

The survivors of the Manus to Madang boat ordeal said they are alive because “God heard their prayers and saved them”.

They said they did not panic when drifting in the open sea but prayed and trusted God for their rescue while surviving on rain water and raw sago.

The nine passengers are now being looked after by the West New Britain Provincial Disaster Centre in Kimbe while the boat’s operator and his crew are still at Vitu Island waiting to be brought to Kimbe.

The 11 people include three students. Six survivors are from Madang and the other five from Manus.

The Madang group was in Manus to sell betelnut and was returning to Madang when they were joined by the other five from Manus.

The survivors said they have travelled many times between Manus and Madang, which normally takes about eight hours.

The weather was fine when they left Manus at 9.30am on December 29 but encountered rough weather in Madang waters and their boat powered by two 40-horse power engines ran out of fuel and they drifted out to open sea.

A member of the group, Laurie Pangheen, said on January 7, after being adrift for nine days, the boat’s operator, Junior Richard Manini and his crew, Charlie Anis, jumped out of the boat into rough seas to swim ashore in the waters off the Bali-Vitu islands to find help.

Pangheen said this was when they were sighted by an Australian aircraft which dropped survival kits. These included water and biscuits and Emergency Activator Positioning Indicating Radio Beacon that showed the rescuers their exact location.

The skipper of the vessel involved in the rescue described the weather as “terrible”.

“It was raining heavily and the winds were blowing at 20 to 30 knots and the waves were two metres to 3.5 metres high but we still continued on,” Peter Wojem, who skipper the Pacific Towing vessel MV Victory, said.

Wojem said they came across the missing boat at 5.50pm, where the found three young women huddled under a sheet of canvas to keep out the rain and wind while six men were sitting out in the open.

“They were all very weak, so our crew helped them onboard and gave them something hot to drink before they took a warm bath,” he said.

He said the survivors were thankful when they touched land at Kimbe and thanked the MV Victory crew before being taken to the Kimbe General Hospital.

The 11 headed out of Baluan Island in Manus on a seven-metre motorised dinghy on December 29 and were headed for Pana Island outside Madang town when they were reported missing the next day.

Pacific Towing general manager Neil Papenfus said a number of small boats had been dispatched earlier to rescue the survivors but due to the deteriorating weather conditions they were forced to seek shelter at a nearby island.

He said the weather was quite bad and because the survivors had been out at sea for almost two weeks, they were exhausted and very hungry.