During the National Day holiday, two Chinese tourists went missing after checking into a resort on Mantanani Island, Sabah, Malaysia. Surveillance footage captured the two in swimsuits heading out to the sea and they never returned. The last signal from their phones was recorded in the deep sea.
Local police received a report from the resort on the evening of the 5th that the two tourists, a man and a woman, had not checked out as scheduled and their whereabouts were unknown.
The missing man, Yu Xiaopeng, 25, is from Weihai, Shandong, and worked in Wuhu, Anhui; the woman, Fan Qin, 28, is a local from Wuhu. They checked into the resort on October 4 at 2:14 pm with a planned check-out time of 11:30 am the next day, but all contact was lost thereafter.
Hotel surveillance footage shows that around 4:30 pm on the 4th, the two left wearing swimsuits and did not return. The hotel staff found their belongings in the room but were unable to contact them, prompting them to report to the police.
The resort, Silk Mermaid Island in Sabah, is located by the sea according to the map.
Mr. Zhang, a friend of Yu Xiaopeng, mentioned that Yu Xiaopeng talked about possibly snorkeling, watching the sunset, or paddleboarding on the 4th, but his specific itinerary remains unclear.
“He usually chats with me, but he suddenly went missing that day,” said Mr. Zhang, who contacted Yu Xiaopeng’s colleague after noticing something was amiss. The colleague found a tablet in the room and used its location function to track down the signal of Yu Xiaopeng’s phone and Bluetooth earphones.
The results showed the last signal from the phone was in the deep sea, while one earphone was located in the city area, and the other remained in the sea.
Malaysian authorities initiated a search and rescue operation on October 5 but have not found them yet. Heavy rain in the area recently and unfavorable sea conditions have made the search challenging, and efforts are ongoing.
Fan Qin’s father and sister arrived in Kota Kinabalu on the 7th, and Yu Xiaopeng’s sister urgently obtained a passport to fly to Malaysia to look for her brother.