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San Diego emergency crews began a search and recovery operation
late Saturday night, after receiving a 911 call from a
Spanish-speaker about fishing boats in distress off the coast of
San Diego's Black's Beach.
Crews arrived to find two fishing boats capsized in a 400-foot
(366 m) area, and eight bodies were recovered from the water and
the beach, San Diego Fire-Rescue Lifeguard Division Chief James
Gartland said.
"This is one of the worst smuggling tragedies that I can think
of in California, certainly here in the city of San Diego,"
Gartland said.
Officials did not know the nationalities of the victims but told
reporters that they were all adults.
Hazardous weather conditions likely contributed to the danger of
the maritime smuggling operation, and also hindered rescue
efforts overnight, officials said. The U.S. Coast Guard and the
San Diego Fire-Rescue Lifeguard division were still involved in
the recovery operation late Sunday morning.
Eric Lavergne, special operations supervisor with the U.S.
Border Patrol in San Diego, said this was one of a few hundred
migrant smuggling events recorded in his jurisdiction this
fiscal year, which is on track with the rate in recent years.
These have included incidents of migrants swimming, traveling by
surfboard or taking panga fishing boats to cross into the U.S.,
he said.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Gabriella Borter; Editing by Lisa
Shumaker and Bill Berkrot)
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