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About 100 mourners gathered at a public dock in Richmond, B.C., to commemorate six victims missing and feared drowned after a charter boat sinking in the Strait of Georgia a week earlier.
Dozens of bouquets of white flowers, a symbol of mourning in Chinese culture, were placed on Imperial Landing Docks in Steveston, B.C., around sunset on Sunday, as victims’ friends and relatives gathered in silence, hugging each other and wiping away tears.
Twenty-three-year-old Chen Ming from Richmond, B.C., has been identified as the captain of the boat and is among those lost at sea.
His girlfriend, Hailey Lee, and his tearful mother, Ashley Lin, scattered white flower petals into the sea at the ceremony.
Ming was remembered as a good friend and a caring person by mourners, including Bob Zhang who says they used to work at T&T Supermarket together and shared the same hobbies of fishing and playing video games.
Zhang says he was on the same boat in late May and was aware of a broken side door, which Lee said last week sprang open and flooded the boat with water in an incident two days before the June 28 sinking.
Zhang says when he first heard about the accident, he hoped it didn’t involve his friend, and it’s painful to accept reality.
Lin said last week that the boat that went down in deep water with 10 people aboard was operated by a charter firm known as Top Fishing.
Four people who were suffering hypothermia were rescued, and RCMP said no one was wearing a life jacket.
Conservative MP Chak Au attended the vigil and says he learned about the sinking from his son, a member of Richmond’s search and rescue team, who participated in the search operation.
Au says the news hit hard for his family and he plans to donate $5,000 to Chen’s family.
