A group of Marshall Islands fishermen who went missing three days ago have been found on an uninhabited atoll about 85 kilometres from home.
Details are sketchy on how they were found but after a report that the seven were on Erikub Atoll, a United States Coast Guard search plane already in the air flew over and saw them on the beach.
Erikub, famous in the Marshall Islands as a turtle spawning location, is within the parameters of a drift pattern prepared by the Coast Guard for the search for the fishermen from Maloelap, an isolated atoll almost 200 kilometres north of the capital, Majuro.
Boats that had been searching in the ocean since Sunday were diverted to collect the fishermen and their boat from Erikub.