A SEARCH TEAM in London has found a body in the River Thames, thought to be that of a man who went missing after his tugboat capsized in the river last week.

The 40-year-old man, who has not been named, has not been seen since the Chieftain tugboat on which he worked sank off Greenwich Pier last Friday morning.

The boat had sank within 30 seconds of colliding with another tugboat in the area; there were three men on board, but the other two members were able to escape the boat.

A spokesman for the Port of London Authority told the UK Independent that the body had been found by a patrol boat, and that it had been recovered from the water by a Metropolitan Police Marine Policing unit.

The spokesman added that the missing man’s family had been informed of the discovery, but that there had not yet been any identification of the body.

The BBC reported that the sunken tug remains in the water at Convoys Wharf, in Deptford, and is to be raised in the coming days.

Safety procedures on the Thames have been particularly tight since 51 people died in 1989 when their riverboat collided with a dredger at Southwark.

Read: Man missing after tugboat overturns in Thames >