Search and rescue (SAR) operations for a missing British national in Dauin, Negros Oriental, will continue on Thursday after initial efforts on Wednesday yielded negative results.
Lt. Marionne Abigail Enopia, Coast Guard Negros Oriental station commander, said that Mark David Morris, 44, was reported missing at 8 a.m. Wednesday to the Dauin police by his wife, 42-year-old Emily Tan Fern, a Singapore resident.
“Our Coast Guard (CG) personnel in Dauin and Zamboanguita, together with the municipal disaster risk reduction and management office (DRRMO), conducted a search early Wednesday after receiving reports of the missing person,” Enopia said.
SAR teams scoured the waters of Dauin and its neighboring towns to no avail, she said.
The wife told the police that her husband had called a local friend, Martin Sardilla, saying that he was going to have a free dive alone and left their rented apartment while she was asleep on Tuesday afternoon.
Morris reportedly went to the beach fronting the Lalao Beach Resort in Poblacion District 1 in Dauin.
The Coast Guard chief said that based on their initial investigation, Morris’ scuba diving gear was nowhere to be found at the couple’s residence.
But Enopia said they are still further investigating whether the British national really went diving or had gone somewhere else instead, in the absence of witnesses who saw him enter the water.
Three dives and coastal searches were made by local and foreign divers and residents of Dauin.
She said the Coast Guard’s Special Operations Unit will be deployed on Thursday to join its regular CG personnel and DRRMO counterparts to continue the search for the missing foreigner.*PNA