8 Missing after boat sinks off N Zealand

Eight people from the same family, including several children, were reported missing Thursday after a fishing boat sank off southern New Zealand, news reports said. One unidentified survivor was reported to have been plucked from the sea about 18 hours after the boat, named Easy Rider, capsized about midnight Wednesday in the 30-kilometre-wide Foveaux Strait separating Stewart Island from the bottom of the South Island, dpa reported. The alarm was not raised until 14 hours after the 11.6-metre boat, which reportedly left the port of Bluff on the mainland in poor weather Wednesday night, failed to make a rendezvous on Stewart Island. A major search and rescue operation was underway, police said.