California dive boat fire death toll rises to 25

The United States Coast Guard said on Monday night it had located the bodies of 25 people, after a dive boat anchored off the coast of Southern California caught fire and sank.

Nine people remain unaccounted for.

Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Kroll of the US Coast Guard said the authorities had recovered 20 bodies and identified the location of five more.

Those five cannot be recovered due to unsafe conditions under the ship, which had been on a three-day scuba diving excursion to the Channel Islands, northwest of Los Angeles.

Kroll said the bodies that had been recovered had injuries consistent with drowning.

Five crew members managed to escape when the fire broke out and were rescued by people on a boat nearby.

The Santa Barbara sheriff had earlier confirmed eight people had died after a fire broke out aboard the Conception, a 75-foot (23-metre) boat, at about 3:15 a.m. (10:15 GMT) on Monday while it was moored just off the shore of Santa Cruz Island.

The Conception had embarked for California’s Channel Islands on Saturday morning with 39 people on board. Five crew members who were above deck on the bridge escaped the fire as passengers slept in the ship’s lower quarters.

“This isn’t a day that we wanted to wake up to for Labor Day and it’s a very tragic event, Coast Guard Captain Monica Rochester told a news conference earlier on Monday, saying the search would continue throughout the night.