Two Singaporeans are believed to have died in a massive pre-dawn fire that engulfed a recreational scuba diving vessel off the southern California coast on Monday.
They are Ms Tan Wei, 26, a postgraduate student from the University of California (UC), Berkeley, and researcher Sunil Singh Sandhu, 46.
Ms Tan's brother has reached Santa Barbara, California, and is waiting for her body to be identified.
Ms Tan and Mr Sunil are among the 34 people thought to have been killed in the blaze early on Monday morning.
Other victims include Mr Raymond Chan, 59, a high school physics teacher from Los Angeles, and his daughter Kendra Chan, 26, a wildlife biologist. Also on board was Ms Alexandra Kurtz, 25, an avid scuba diver from Cincinnati, and Mr Charles McIlvain, 44, who worked as a visual effects designer for Walt Disney Imagineering.
A family of five from Stockton, California, who were on the trip to celebrate the birthday of the father, Mr Michael Quitasol, also died in the fire.
All but one of the badly burnt bodies have been recovered, and are being identified using a DNA analysis tool typically employed in war zones.
Ms Tan's elder sister, Ms Tan Cheerin, 29, announced her sister's death in a Facebook post yesterday evening.
"It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of my beloved little sister, Wei Tan. She was one of the victims in the unfortunate boat fire accident that happened in California on Sept 2," wrote Ms Tan Cheerin, a business insights analyst at Apple. "At the moment, my family is coping well while we wait for DNA testing to be completed."
She said her brother, Mr Sejay Tan Sijie, is in Santa Barbara to handle the paperwork and arrangements. "We sincerely thank all relatives and friends for your love and concern as we get through this difficult phase. It hurts, it will always hurt... but we will move on."
The Straits Times visited the Tan family home yesterday afternoon, but no one answered the door.
Ms Tan Wei and Mr Sunil's names were listed on the passenger manifest of the boat, the Conception.
The 23m-long vessel was moored off Santa Cruz Island when the fire broke out at 6.15pm Singapore time on Monday. The boat had set sail for the Channel Islands in California last Saturday morning.
American news outlets have since reported that five crew members, who were topside and awake when the fire started, fled in a lifeboat.
Meanwhile, the passengers sleeping below deck, including Mr Sunil and Ms Tan, are feared to have died in the blaze.
Ms Tan graduated earlier this year with a master's in engineering from UC Berkeley, specialising in industrial engineering and operations research.
She had been working as a data scientist at a technology company in Santa Barbara for just four months before the tragic accident.
It was earlier reported that Mr Sunil had been living in the United States for more than two decades, and had completed his master's and PhD at Stanford University.
Mr Sunil's father, Mr Sojit Singh, 77, told The New Paper that the last time he spoke with his son was last Friday. Mr Sunil had picked up scuba diving only two months ago, and father and son had discussed Mr Sunil's first diving experience.
Mr Singh said: "I told him to be careful because scuba diving can be a dangerous sport. I didn't know that he was going for another trip. I had been trying to persuade him to come back to Singapore."
Audio of a distress call has also been released online, in which an unidentified person can be heard screaming "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!", and "I can't breathe!"
A spokesman for Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told The Straits Times that it is aware of the incident. "According to the US authorities, the names of two Singaporeans are listed on the passenger manifest of the Conception. Search operations and identification of the victims by the US authorities are ongoing," said the spokesman.
"The Singapore Consulate-General in San Francisco is in close contact with the local authorities and has deployed an officer on the ground to gather more information about the two Singaporeans."
The spokesman added that the ministry is also in contact with the victims' next of kin and will render the necessary assistance.
