Two cranes carry out an operation to lift a burnt fishing boat at Hallim Port on Jeju Island, Tuesday. Yonhap

The Coast Guard retrieved Tuesday a body believed to be of a crewman who went missing in a devastating fire at a port on the southern island of Jeju last week, officials said.

The fire broke out on a 29-ton fishing boat docked at Hallim Port on Thursday and spread to two others, leaving three crewmen of the first boat seriously injured and two others ― one foreigner and one South Korean ― missing.

During an operation to lift the 29-ton boat out of the sea Tuesday, Coast Guard workers found and collected the body in the underwater mud in the vicinity, officials said.

Coast Guard officials are trying to determine the exact identity of the body, believing it belongs to one of the two missing crewmen. (Yonhap)