PHNOM PENH - HE WENT to Cambodia last Thursday leading 21 dragon boat paddlers. Yesterday, a shattered Yeo Chin Hwei, 27, returned home with only 16 of them.

The trainee teacher and captain of the 22-man national dragon boat team said: 'The past few days have been devastating and traumatising. It has been a near death experience for most of us.'

Speaking to reporters for the first time since last Friday's tragedy, he preferred not to dwell on the events that led their boat to capsize on the Tonle Sap River.

But he described the agonising wait for news of the five young men who went missing. More than teammates, they had been his buddies and close friends.

'We had to stay,' he said. 'At first, most of us still clung to some hope that there might be a miracle that they could have survived.'

That was the same heartfelt hope of every family member who had kept vigil by the Tonle Sap.

On Saturday night, he met the family members to answer their questions and tell them what happened on the water before their sons and brothers disappeared.

'That is my responsibility,' he said yesterday. 'For the parents, they want the truth of what really happened.'

In the end, there was no miracle. On Sunday, the five paddlers' bodies turned up one by one.

Mr Yeo had the sad task of identifying his friends' bodies, paying his respects with lighted joss sticks, and facing their inconsolable parents, brothers and sisters.

'It was tough but I had to do it, as the captain,' he said.

Asked how close he had been to the dead men, he broke down as he revealed that he had been closest to National Junior College teacher Stephen Loh, 31.

'Stephen was my...' he began, but was unable to finish his sentence. 'We were in the SEA Games together in 2005. I've known him for, like, five years.'

He was also close to engineer Poh Boon San, 27, and had known the others - music composer and model Reuben Kee, 23, trainee teacher Jeremy Goh, 24 and full-time national serviceman Chee Wei Cheng, 20 - for about three years or less.

'I just want to say all of them were good guys,' he said. 'They had a promising future. Good friends, good teammates.'

Before leaving Phnom Penh yesterday, he and the other survivors returned to the Tonle Sap to say a last farewell.

They knelt, facing the water that took their friends. They tossed flowers into the water. They wept.

'It's painful,' he said.