They write ‘Help’ on the beach, save 3 shipwrecked people in Micronesia

(ANSA) – LOS ANGELES, APRIL 12 – ‘Help’. These four letters drawn in the sand using palm leaves were the salvation for three sailors who were stranded on a desert island in the Pacific Ocean following a shipwreck. The three in fact ‘wrote’ in large letters on the white sand of a Micronesian atoll where they had landed their SOS message which was seen by rescuers and they were rescued a week after their landing on the islet, he declared Chelsea Garcia, search and rescue mission coordinator. This was stated in a statement released by the United States Coast Guard. The islet where the three sailors were stranded is called Pikelot, and is a tiny uninhabited island in the Caroline Islands, in the middle of the Pacific, annexed to the Federated States of Micronesia. They were spotted on Sunday by a plane flying over the area which dropped a radio at them to establish communications. The sailors confirmed that they were in “good health, that they had access to food and water – the press release specified – and expressed the desire to obtain help to return to Polowat”, the islet from which they had set off, about 185 kilometers away from the landing atoll. Their boat was damaged and could not be used. A vessel rescued the three and their equipment on Tuesday morning, returning them to Polowat Atoll, the coast guard said. In August 2020, three Micronesian sailors stranded on Pikelot were also rescued after Australian and US warplanes spotted a giant “SOS” they had ‘written’ on the beach. (HANDLE).