Getting your player ready...
SYDNEY — An urgent search and rescue mission was underway today for about two dozen people missing after their boat sank in open seas. A merchant ship that responded to a distress call managed to pluck 17 survivors from the Indian Ocean late Sunday and was searching for others, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said.
About 40 people — possibly asylum seekers — were believed to be aboard the boat that went down near the Cocos Islands, about 1,500 miles northwest of the Australian coast.
