KUCHING: Sibu police have fished a body out of Sungai Rajang this morning, but they are uncertain if it is one of the four men who went missing after their speed boat capsized near Kapit on Thursday.
Two of the four missing men were police personnel, and all of them were presumed to have drowned.
Police said the body was spotted by the public at 11.30am near the large river island of Pulau Kerto. The remains have been sent to the Sibu Hospital for post-mortem.
The distance of Sungai Rajang from Sibu to Kapit is around 129km and the journey is more than three hours by speedboat. However, incessant rain over the past week had caused the water level to rise with strong currents.
The four men have been identified as Sergeant Jonathan Lambet, 50; Constable Iskandar Ibrahim, 27; Amerson John Nain, a 47-year-old director of a private firm; and boat pilot Jack Balan, 44.
A fifth person, identified as 47-year-old Moses Ngui, was the only survivor. He was pulled out of the water by passing boaters.
The two policemen, attached to the Kapit police district headquarters, were on escort duty for Nain, who was transporting 35kg of explosives and 1,050 detonators to Nanga Tulie, a remote settlement up Sungai Baleh.
The explosives were reportedly for a road construction project.
According to a Civil Defence Department, the fiberglass boat that the men were on capsized after hitting a whirlpool at the confluence of Sungai Rajang and Sungai Baleh.
The Fire and Rescue Department, which is leading the search and rescue (SAR) operations, said three SAR teams have been deployed.
The first team, comprising 10 police personnel, six civil defence members and three firemen, had been tasked with searching both sides of the river within a 5km radius of the incident site.
The second team, comprising men from the Sarawak Rivers Board, were tasked with searching a 42km-stretch of Sungai Rajang from Kapit to the town of Song.
The third team, made up of firemen from the Song fire station, had been tasked with conducting a search between Sebatu and the town of Ngemah.
Seven members of the victims' families have also joined the search. Today's search was called off at 6pm and the Fire and Rescue Department said it will resume tomorrow morning.