Photo: CBS 8 // YouTube
At least three are dead after a small boat capsized near Torrey Pines State Beach in Del Mar, California. Four more passengers were sent to nearby hospitals with injuries, and authorities are searching for nine others.
Onlookers saw the small boat capsize around 6:30 Monday morning, as CBS affiliate KFMB reports. Seven were found on the beach – three dead and four injured. Sheriff’s deputies reported that doctors who were on their way to work stopped to perform CPR.
The craft was eventually found around 9:00 a.m, overturned near the shoreline around 12600 N. Torrey Pines Road. The Associated Press reports it was a 20-foot-long wooden Panga-style boat. Over a dozen life vests were found onboard, as well as an empty waterproof cell phone bag and water bottles.
It has not been confirmed where the boat was traveling from, but authorities have offered some theories as to who may have been on board. “They were not tourists,” Coast Guard Petty Officer Chris Sappey told AP. “They are believed to be migrants.”
According to the AP, agencies that responded to the accident included Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Coast Guard, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Encinitas Fire Department. Lifeguards remained in the area looking for the remaining passengers
