FORT PIERCE, Fla. - The U.S. Coast Guard says that its crews have recovered one body and continue to search for 38 other people who were in a suspected human smuggling boat that capsized off the east coast of Florida over the weekend.Searchers worked throughout the night after a solitary survivor was found by a good Samaritan Tuesday morning clinging to the overturned hull of a boat that capsized off the Florida coast.Capt.
Jo-Ann F. Burdian told reporters on Wednesday that finding the other migrants alive is their highest priority."It is dire. The longer they remain in the water ...
exposed to the marine environment ... with every moment that passes, it becomes much more dire and more unlikely" that survivors will be found, she said.PREVIOUS: Coast Guard crews searching for survivors after suspected human smuggling boat capsizes off Florida coastCrews on at least four ships and five aircraft already scanned a vast area about the size of New Jersey, Burdian said.The man told a good Samaritan who rescued him that he was part of a group of 40 people who left the island of Bimini in the Bahamas on Saturday night in what the maritime security agency suspects was a human smuggling operation.
He said none wore life jackets as they capsized in severe weather.(Photo: US Coast Guard) The Coast Guard said a small craft advisory had been issued as a severe cold front blew through the dangerous passage on Saturday and Sunday, with winds up to 23 mph and swells up to 9 feet high.