Moya Gyan­dass paced anx­ious­ly along the Car­li Bay shore­line yes­ter­day, as the par­ty who went search­ing for her hus­band Sie­u­nar­ine Gyan­dass and neigh­bour Vedesh Mar­lo re­turned. But Gyan­dass’ hope for a mir­a­cle was quick­ly re­duced to tears as all the crew re­turned with was the life jack­et her hus­band was last seen wear­ing.

Sie­u­nar­ine was the own­er of a flat bot­tom boat that took the ill-fat­ed trip to the Gulf of Paria on Sun­day af­ter­noon. Two of his rel­a­tives drowned while he and Mar­lo dis­ap­peared af­ter the jumped over­board when the boat be­gan tak­ing in wa­ter. Two men al­so sur­vived the or­deal.

Ken­neth Ram­per­sad, who led the search team, said they reached close to Venezuela but had to re­turn be­cause their gas was run­ning low. Ram­per­sad, a cousin, said on their way back he spot­ted the life jack­et float­ing. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Sie­u­nar­ine, 51, his broth­er Chu­ni­lal Gyan­dass, 53, broth­er-in-law Ku­mar Lal­la, 49, cousin Ronald Nar­i­nesingh, 36 and Mar­lo, 23 and his cousin Glen Pra­ha­l­ad, 34, left Car­li Bay around 1 pm Sun­day to fish. But the chop­py sea con­di­tion caused the boat to take in wa­ter and around 3 pm when it be­gan to sink the men jumped out.

Lal­la, who wore a life jack­et and Pra­ha­l­ad were able to swim back to shore but the oth­ers drift­ed away.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]