By Uditha Jayasinghe
GALLE, Sri Lanka, March 5 (Reuters) – Iranian sailors who survived a U.S. submarine strike in the Indian Ocean were recovering at a hospital in the Sri Lankan port city of Galle, authorities said on Thursday, a day after at least 87 were killed in the attack.
Authorities at the National Hospital in Galle and navy sources said 87 bodies were brought in by military rescuers who responded to an early-morning distress call from the IRIS Dena on Wednesday.
Search and rescue operations for an estimated 60 people on board who remain unaccounted for would continue on Thursday, authorities said.
The 32 rescued sailors were being treated for minor injuries and could be released from hospital on Thursday, authorities said. Two policemen guarded the entrance to ward No. 58 of the hospital as nurses milled about and doctors conducted morning rounds.
The attack, which dramatically widens the scope of the war, happened hundreds of miles across the Indian Ocean from the Gulf, where U.S. and Israeli forces are striking Iran and Tehran is retaliating with missile and drone attacks.
“An American submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the Pentagon. “Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death.”
A Pentagon video purporting to have captured the attack showed the warship being hit by a huge explosion, which blew apart the rear of the vessel, lifting it from the water, and causing it to begin sinking from the stern.
(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe in Galle; Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
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