After the dramatic rescue of a Portuguese woman, rescuers located a young man in the Velebit Channel area. The search for the remaining two people continues with the involvement of a police helicopter.
On Wednesday, August 12, 2026, the search and rescue operation in the Velebit Channel took a positive turn once again. At around 1:40 PM, rescuers located a young man alive, the second of four Portuguese nationals who had gone missing earlier that morning.
The young man was found on the rocks between Ogrul Bay and Cape Glavina. A vessel from the Senj Harbor Master's Office immediately picked him up and transported him toward Novi Vinodolski, where he was handed over to the emergency medical team. The search for the remaining two Portuguese nationals continues at full intensity.
To increase the chances of finding the missing individuals, a police helicopter, a BELL 412, joined the search at around 2:00 PM. The entire operation has been coordinated from the start by the National Center for Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination in Rijeka.
The search began at 4:41 AM after the disappearance of four young Portuguese nationals was reported. They had found themselves in a dangerous situation due to extremely bad weather. During the morning, gusts of bora wind ranging from 60 to 70 knots were recorded, and waves on the eastern side of Krk reached between 2.5 and 3 meters.
The first major success came at 11:40 AM when a Portuguese woman was rescued alive from the sea in Butinj Bay. After being transported to Novi Vinodolski and handed over to doctors, she herself tried to assist in the ongoing search.
"She was trying to guide us, helping us in the search for that person, but we didn't find them," said Nenad Bugarin, captain of the Senj Harbor Master's Office. The woman told rescuers that approximately 20 minutes before she was found, another person had been nearby.
A Pilatus aircraft played a crucial role in locating her, spotting a person in the sea at 11:05 AM. After that, the search was directed along the eastern coast of Krk. According to the report from the National Center for Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination, the report of the first find was received at 11:44 AM, and the woman was pulled from the sea onto a rescue boat, exhausted but uninjured. The Coast Guard aircraft spotted her about 0.4 nautical miles from Butinj Bay, after which rescue units were immediately directed to that position.
Earlier in the morning, at 8:10 AM, an abandoned floating object was discovered in Smokova Bay on Krk. According to the description, it matched the vessel the Portuguese had set out on. Captain Bugarin explained that it was a small inflatable boat with oars, about one and a half meters long. No one was on it.
Unofficially, it has been learned that a larger group of Portuguese tourists was staying at the Kozica camp, located between Senj and Novi Vinodolski. Four of them decided around 3:00 AM to head toward Senj in that small rubber boat, despite the strong bora wind and high waves.
Despite the extremely challenging weather conditions, the search for the remaining two individuals continues, with numerous resources now involved, including a helicopter from the Ministry of the Interior. At sea, rescue boats from the Senj Harbor Master's Office, the Rijeka Harbor Master's Office, and the Novi Vinodolski Harbor Master's Office branch are participating, and additional maritime units from the Rijeka Maritime and Airport Police Station are expected to arrive. Members of the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service have also joined the search, scouring the coastal area and using an unmanned aerial vehicle.
