Qualified divers have told Sky News how “corner-cutting” caused significant safety hazards on a tourist boat with the same owners as the vessel which sank in the Red Sea.

The 44-metre-long Sea Story went down on Monday, south of the Egyptian coastal town of Marsa Alam.

Sea Story, which is owned by Dive Pro Liveaboard in Hurghada, Egypt, was a four-deck, wooden-hulled motor yacht which was on a multi-day diving trip.

An experienced diver has said he had travelled on another vessel, the Sea Pearl, owned by the same firm, just days before the incident.

Timothy, who only wanted to give his first name, said there were concerns among divers about “boat safety standards” on the Sea Pearl boat and the lack of a life jacket drill – and revealed there was no centralised system or adequate communication to raise the alarm in the event of an emergency.

“The Egyptian government has robust safety standards, but there’s very little enforcement,” he told Sky News.

“We weren’t told how to deploy the life rafts or anything like that. That’s not specific to Dive Pro – this would be common across the industry here.

“They didn’t say, ‘familiarise yourself with your life jackets in your room’.”

Timothy said another couple in the group revealed how they only had one life jacket between them in their cabin.

“When [they] went to the crew and asked for another one, they said ‘it’s fine, we have plenty of them in the crew quarters’,” he said.

“That’s an example of the kind of corner-cutting that I was referring to.

“I found that the staff were smoking cigarettes on the dive deck where we have compressed oxygen cylinders – you know, risk of a massive explosion.”

He added there was no safety plan or drill put in place so people were aware of what to do in an emergency.

“Absolutely not. There was no plan of escape,” he said.

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Timothy said there was an emergency escape hatch on the Sea Pearl “but it wasn’t pointed out to us how to open it”.

He added: “We found it ourselves. It’s only approximately a metre square – so it would be only one person at a time.

“And imagine if the boat was inverted in the dark. Some of the divers were relatively elderly.

“There was no emergency drill at all. They just said there are life jackets in all the cabins, but it turns out that wasn’t the case.”

Another qualified diver, who only wants to be known as James, told Sky News he had been “unhappy” about his experience on Sea Pearl.

He added: “Safety didn’t feel paramount. It didn’t feel like it was the most important thing to Dive Pro, operating the Sea Pearl.

“We arrived at the boats and on the Saturday, nobody kind of said, ‘hi, I’m such and such’. They basically just guided us towards a man with a credit card machine.

“They wanted their port fees paying before we did anything else and any other extras that we needed.”

Dive Pro Liveaboard has been contacted by Sky News for comment, but the firm has not responded.

A man who went missing for five weeks in a remote park in the Rocky Mountains has been found alive – after enduring temperatures as low as -20C (-4F).

Sam Benastick was reported missing on 19 October after failing to return from a 10-day trip to Redfern-Keily Park in Canada’s British Columbia province.

Search efforts, led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), were called off in late October with temperatures dropping well below freezing at times.

But on Tuesday, two men on their way to work at Redfern Lake saw a man walking towards them and recognised him as Mr Benastick.

They took him to a hospital, where police officially identified him as the missing 20-year-old.

Corporal Madonna Saunderson, of the British Columbia RCMP communications team, said: “Finding Sam alive is the absolute best outcome.

“After all the time he was missing, it was feared that this would not be the outcome.”

Mr Benastick told police he stayed in his car for a couple of days and then walked to a creek where he camped out for between 10 and 15 days.

He said he then moved down the valley, and built a camp and shelter in a dried-out creek bed, before making his way to the area where he was found.

According to CBC News, Mr Benastick’s parents had stayed for 20 days at the Buffalo Inn near Pink Mountain while taking part in the search.

The inn’s general manager, Mike Reid, who said he had spoken to the people who found Mr Benastick, told the Canadian broadcaster: “You know, the guy says he’s in rough shape. But man, for 50 days out in that cold, he’s going to live.”

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More than 120 volunteers from across British Columbia were reportedly involved in the search effort, alongside the RCMP and Canadian Rangers, as well as Fort Nelson and North Peace search and rescue teams.

Redfern-Keily Park, where Mr Benastick went missing, is a remote beauty spot in the north-eastern region of British Columbia and is part of the Northern Rocky Mountains.

Those visiting the park are warned it is an “isolated area and weather can change rapidly” – and to be wary of possible encounters with grizzly and black bears.

At least 27 have died after flash floods and landslides hit the north of Indonesia’s Sumatra island.

Torrential rain started striking North Sumatra province last week, causing flash floods and landslides in four districts, with extreme weather expected through to the end of the year.

As of Thursday morning, at least 27 have died as a result of the conditions.

Hadi Wahyudi, a North Sumatra police spokesperson, said a landslide in Deli Serdang on Wednesday killed seven and injured 20.

Rescuers found 20 people dead in other locations during a search that started over the weekend.

Mr Wahyudi said rescue efforts are ongoing and authorities are still searching for missing people, including some trapped in a minibus and other vehicles hit by a mudslide on a hilly interprovince road.

“Today, we’re focusing our search to find missing people and clearing the roads affected by the landslides,” he said, before adding excavators have been deployed.

Heavy rain also triggered floods in the provincial capital of Medan, forcing a delay in votes for a regional election in some polling stations.

Indonesia’s weather agency has warned that extreme conditions are expected towards the end of 2024 as the La Nina phenomenon increases rainfall across the tropical archipelago.

The country – made up of more than 17,000 islands where millions live in mountainous areas or near flood plains – regularly sees flooding and landslides from seasonal rain between October and March.

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In March, at least 19 people were killed in Sumatra after torrential rain caused landslides.