Father’s final act of love saves son from tourist boat capsizing in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay

The tourist boat, with 49 people on board, flipped over while traveling in Ha Long Bay at around 2:00 pm on Saturday.

The capsizing occurred about three nautical miles from the mainland, due to a sudden thunderstorm with strong winds.

Before the tragic incident, the vessel had lost its GPS signal.

Border guards and rescuers were quickly mobilized, along with dozens of boats, to the scene for search and rescue efforts.

As of 10:00 am on Sunday morning, rescuers had saved 10 people and recovered 35 bodies, while four were still missing after the fatal incident.

Ten-year-old H.N.M., from Hoang Mai Ward in Hanoi, was the only survivor from his family of four after the boat capsized.

Rescued from the overturned vessel by search and rescue teams late that evening, the boy was found alive but in shock, physically stable but mentally shattered, local media reported.

According to family members and rescuers, his father, identified as Th., fought to the last moment to ensure his son’s survival.

As the boat began to tip and chaos ensued, Th. managed to put a life jacket on his son and push him up to a higher deck in hopes of keeping him safe.

Exhausted and overpowered by the rising water, he was unable to save himself.

Before Sunday evening, rescuers were enhancing efforts to find missing victims, including Th., while M.'s mother and younger sister, just three years old, were found deceased.

Trang, a relative of the family, arrived at Bai Chay Hospital on Sunday morning, hoping for news, reported Dan Tri newspaper.

When she saw M. in the emergency room, she was overcome with emotion.

The boy, still unaware of the full extent of the tragedy, clung to the hope that his loved ones had survived.

“The boy told me, ‘If I could barely handle this, how could the younger children have survived? They must have all died,’” Trang recounted.

“He kept asking about his parents and younger sister. 

"I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. 

"How can I tell a child his whole world is gone?”

M. survived because the cabin he was pushed into was not completely flooded, allowing him to breathe until rescuers arrived.