Live
- Man Arrested for Allegedly Assaulting 15-Year-Old Girl
- Manchu Lakshmi Shares Cryptic Social Media Post
- Heavy rains cause disruptions in Tirumala and Tirupati
- Former Soldier Builds Temple for Rajinikanth, Installs New Idol on Superstar’s 74th Birthday
- Mohan Babu’s Daughter Manchu Lakshmi's Viral Post Sparks Controversy Amid Family Disputes
- NIST hosts alumni meet
- Upcoming Telugu OTT Releases: A Treat for Telugu Cinema Lovers in December
- Vedamrit Honey’ launched
- Arjun Das Brings Mufasa to Life in Tamil
- Odisha move to prepare maritime perspective plan
Mexican fisherman Jose Salvador's castaway experience
Highlights
Mexican fisherman Jose Salvador's castaway experience
A Mexican castaway who says he has been lost at sea for more than 13 months has been pictured for the first time on his arrival back in civilisation.
With a bushy beard and described as “looking better than one would expect”, the man set foot on land in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, after a 22-hour boat ride from the remote Ebon Atoll coral reef where he was found.
The US ambassador Thomas Armbruster, acting as an interpreter for the Marshall Islands authorities, said the man identified himself as a 37-year-old whose full name is Jose Salvador Albarengo.
“He said he is a shrimp and shark fisherman,” the ambassador told the AFP news agency after speaking with the castaway.
Mr Albarengo reportedly said he was on a shark-fishing expedition for the fishing company Camoronera Dela Costa in Tapachula, Mexico, when strong winds forced his 24-foot fibreglass boat off course.
Around a thousand onlookers turned out to welcome Mr Albarengo on his return to civilisation on Monday The fisherman said he was accompanied at the time by a 15- to 18-year-old boy named Xiquel, who died just a few weeks after they got lost because he was unable to eat raw bird meat.
Eventually arriving at the southern-most cluster of the Marshall Islands territories 8,000 miles away, Mr Albarengo has previously told reporters he survived by eating turtles, birds and fish and drinking turtle blood and rainwater.
Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student on Ebon Atoll, told the BBC how she and a group of researchers were the first to meet the castaway when they spotted his boat.
“And when we got there we first found his boat, which was... grown over with shells and other sea animals. It had a live baby bird, a dead turtle, some turtle shells and fish leftovers inside.
“He was in really bad shape in terms of strength and in terms of mental health.”
Marshall Islands immigration chief Damien Jacklick told AFP: “With the help of the US ambassador, we were able to obtain information on his family members in El Salvador and the United States,” he told AFP. “We hope this information will help us track down his family.”
Next Story
ADVERTISEMENT
