11 Indonesian fishermen rescued after surviving for six days without food or water off Australia’s coast

Australian authorities rescued 11 Indonesian fishermen after they survived six days without food or water on a tiny desert island in the Indian Ocean.

The survivors were rescued on Monday from Bedwell Island, located 195 miles (313km) west off the coast of the town of Broome in Western Australia, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said.

Nine other fishermen are feared dead.

The fishermen were left stranded after their two vessels were destroyed last week by Tropical cyclone Ilsa, one of the strongest storms to hit the region in years.

A border security aircraft spotted them during a surveillance mission following the cyclone that smashed into Australia as a Category 5 storm.

Australian authorities diverted a rescue aircraft to investigate and tasked a rescue helicopter to airlift the fishers to Broome.

The survivors said that there had been two fishing vessels with 10 crew each, but one vessel had sunk in the cyclone's extreme conditions.

Nine of the 10 crew members of the second vessel, Putri Jaya, were unaccounted for.

The sole survivor from the second ship reportedly spent 30 hours in the water, clinging onto a jerry can, before being picked up by the fishermen from the other vessel.

Pictures released by the Australian authorities showed the group of fishermen waving to the rescue helicopter above, while their damaged vessel lay by the shore.

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Gordon Watt, a manager at helicopter provider PHI Aviation, said it was "remarkable" that the fishermen survived for so long. "That must have been really difficult for them – it's a really remote area," Mr Watt told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

He added that the rescue helicopter crew struggled to land on the sand due to the fading visibility.

“They had to conduct winch recoveries which, in itself, is a challenging task. The time of day meant that nightfall was upon the crew during the rescue, so they had to transition to using night vision goggles to [detect any] image in the dark," he said.

"It was apparent [that], using the onboard sensors on the aircraft, the team was able to identify that the survivors were signalling they needed water and refreshments."

The survivors were taken to the Broome hospital, where they were said to be in good health despite their ordeal.

The missing Indonesian fishermen are expected to be the only fatalities from Ilsa, which was a maximum Category 5 cyclone when it crossed the Pilbara region coast of Western Australia state southwest of Broome.

A gust of 180mph (289kmph) recorded on an island off the Pilbara coast was the fastest ever recorded by Australia’s weather bureau equipment in the country. While the reading remains preliminary, the bureau said on Tuesday it beats the previous record of 166mph (267kmph) set by cyclone Vance on the Pilbara coast in 1999.