The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) on Thursday called on members of the public not to set off sky lanterns, also known as Chinese lanterns, as they could be confused with distress flares.
The NSRI said in a statement that eyewitness reports of distress flares around the coastline require the emergency services to immediately launch a full search and rescue operation.
Even when the sighting is thought to be a sky lantern a search operation will continue until it can be absolutely confirmed that no person or craft at sea is in any difficulty.
The statement added that sky lanterns posed the additional danger of being a fire hazard, with greater risk than normal this year because of the drought.
In a media release previously posted by the City of Cape Town: Sky Lanterns (also known as Chinese Lanterns) are illegal.
– African News Agency (ANA)
