Crews from the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre announced Thursday that they are searching for a man who fell off a fishing vessel south of Yarmouth, N.S.
In a tweet, the JRCC said they were notified of the situation at 4 a.m. Thursday.
JRCC’s Lt.-Cmdr. Brian Owens said there were four people on board the vessel, and three of them went to sleep Wednesday night.
“Shortly before 4 a.m. this morning, one of them woke up and looked for the captain and he was nowhere to be found onboard the vessel,” said Owens.
A number of vessels and an aircraft were immediately called to help in the search.
Owens said that the challenging element right now is that crews don’t have an exact starting point.
“We’re going from the last known position when the call was made, so we’re looking from that point moving out, and with an aircraft we are able to cover a great deal of area,” he said.
As of Thursday afternoon, there’s no indication of the missing captain, but Owens said crews will continue the search throughout the day and into the evening.
“We have to remind that anyone on the water in the vicinity, which is 15 nautical miles southwest of Yarmouth…if they see anything, please report it to the local authorities,” he said.
“This will help narrow down our search area.”
In the meantime, the fishing vessel has been escorted to Yarmouth. All remaining individuals onboard are safe.
A spokeswoman from Sipekne’katik First Nation said in an interview the person is from the community located about 65 kilometres north of Halifax, but she had no other details.
— with a file from The Canadian Press