Fishermen in Malaysia found an orange and black life raft floating in the Malacca Strait, local media reported Wednesday.
The discovery was reported to maritime officials, who tried to recover the raft but it sank into the sea, according to the New Straits Times. NBC News was unable to confirm the report.
It reported that one of the fishermen, Azman Mohamad, 40, found the badly damaged raft – bearing the word “Boarding” – 10 nautical miles from the coastal town of Port Dickson at 12 p.m. local time (12 a.m. ET) Tuesday.
"We managed to tie it to our boat as we feared it would sink due to the damages," he told the New Straits Times.
However, a spokesman for the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said the raft vanished under the waves as they were trying to bring it onboard.
Previous sightings of debris in the region have proved false.
