Police question boat blast witnesses

Police have begun interviewing almost 100 witnesses to a fatal explosion onboard a
boat carrying suspected asylum seekers.
All 42 surviving passengers from the blast will be interviewed, along with two crew
members and 51 Defence Force personnel.
Police from the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia, along with the
Australian Federal Police, will carry out the interviews.
NT Police's Acting Commander Peter Bravos, who heads up the territory's
investigation, said survivors would not be interviewed until they were ready.
"A number of passengers from the vessel remain in hospital with their health and
wellbeing the number one concern prior to police being able to interview them,"
Acting Commander Bravos said.
He said the search for two people who went missing in the blast is continuing. The
official death toll stands at three.
The cause of the explosion remains unknown, Acting Commander Bravos said.
He said investigators expected to have completed interviewing the Defence Force
personnel by the end of Saturday.
"By the end of today we should have completed interviewing all those people," he
told reporters in Darwin.
All of the clothing worn by those on the boat has been collected and sent for
forensic testing.
Autopsies on the three dead were expected to be completed on Saturday afternoon but
the results would become part of the coronial inquiry and would not be released
publicly at this point, Acting Commander Bravos said.
He said investigators would be travelling to the site of the blast to collect any
debris.
"We've got both NT Police and Australian Federal Police going to the area to assess
any debris," he said.