by Mindy Aguon, KUAM NewsThursday, July 01, 2004 Subscribe to Mindy's newsfeed
When Typhoon Tingting approached Guam this past weekend as a tropical storm, no one could have imagined how many lives would be impacted from the storm. Emergency response personnel have received almost a dozen calls of distressed or missing individuals in Guam's waters since Friday of last week. Guam Fire and Guam Police department personnel have been conducting two searches. One for a man who disappeared outside the reef in Tumon off of Ypao Beach and the other for five Seawalker employees who were last seen in three kayaks near the Fish Eye Marine Park Observatory in Piti. This morning search efforts continued with vessels from GFD, GPD and the U.S. Coast Guard searching in Guam's waters.At approximately 7:12 this morning the USCG vessel located a body about 300 yards off the reef near the Fish Eye Observatory. Officials took the body to the Hagatna Boat Basin, where family members of the kayakers were asked to try and identify if the body was that of their loved ones. With no positive identification, the body was taken to the morgue at the Guam Memorial Hospital in Tamuning. Chief medical examiner Dr. Aurelio Espinola confirmed the man is not one of the five kayakers, but could not confirm officially if the body was that of the other missing man in Tumon.Dr. Espinola will conduct an autopsy on Friday morning to get further information. The medical examiner said it is difficult to identify the man because the body has been badly decomposed and appears to have been in the water for a couple of days.