BALIK PULAU: Two men survived the night at sea by holding on to containers used to store fish after their boat capsized off the Pantai Malindo coast here.

Police said Lim Thing Guan, 68, and Jamil Mohd Noor, 50, were pulling up their fishing net when their 24ft fibreglass boat was hit by strong waves and capsized at about 7pm on Friday.

Both stayed afloat by holding on to the containers. Fishermen going out to sea yesterday morning spotted Lim at about 8am and rescued him. Lim lodged a police report at about 10.15am when he reached shore to inform that Jamil was still missing.

The Fire and Rescue Department was subsequently alerted about the case and launched a search for Jamil. Midway through the search, they were informed at 1.30pm that fishermen had found Jamil in a weak state and brought him to the Sungai Pinang jetty here.

Jamil was subsequently taken to the Balik Pulau Hospital and later transferred to the Penang Hospital.-thestar