300 migrants feared dead near India

NEW DELHI, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Indian officials said Monday about 300 migrants were missing and feared drowned after they jumped ship and tried to swim ashore near Andaman Island last week.

The Indian Coast Guard rescued 103 migrants thought to be from Myanmar or Bangladesh Saturday and Sunday, Inspector General S.P. Sharma, commander of the Andaman and Nicobar Coast Guard Region, told CNN. Officials said the people had been adrift in the Bay of Bengal for several days.

Andaman Nicobar Islands are about 850 miles east of the Indian mainland, close to Thailand

Sharma said the coast guard and Indian navy would conduct an air and sea search, but said officials held out little hope of finding more survivors, The Guardian reported.

Officials said details of how the migrants wound up adrift in the waters between India and Thailand were sketchy. The Indian news agency quoted a defense official who said that after intercepting the migrants, Thai authorities put them on a pontoon tied to a ship to deport them, the British newspaper said. The migrants apparently released the attaching cable and the pontoon began to drift.