Myanmar's navy has seized a boat packed with 727 people off the country's southern coast, the government says, about a week after it found a similar boat it said carried around 200 Bangladeshi migrants.
The nationality of the people on the boat was unclear.
Myanmar's ministry of information described them as "Bengalis", using the term the government uses to describe the country's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority as well as immigrants from Bangladesh.
"Altogether 727 people — 608 Bengali men, 74 women and 45 children — in a fishing boat have been arrested as a Myanmar navy ship found them this morning in the delta," a statement posted on Facebook said.
Myanmar insisted it was not to blame for South-East Asia's latest influx of "boat people" at a regional crisis meeting in Thailand, as the United States said thousands of vulnerable migrants remained adrift at sea and needed urgent rescue.
More than 3,000 migrants have landed in Indonesia and Malaysia since Thailand launched a crackdown on human trafficking gangs this month.
About 2,600 are believed to be still adrift.
"Myanmar navy is now transporting the boat to its base on Haingye Island," said Tun Kyaw Kyaw, the deputy director general of the Ayeyarwady Division government, responsible for the area region where navy base is located.
The island is also on Myanmar's southern coast, close to the place where the boat was seized.
"After sending the people to the island, we will investigate them," said Tun Kyaw Kyaw, adding that the examination was necessary to determine their identity.
Pictures posted on the ministry of information's Facebook page showed scores of men huddling shoulder-to-shoulder under the sun on the front deck, while uniformed officials — one of them carrying a rifle — stood above.
Women could be seen crammed together in the boat's cabins.
The navy found the boat 30 nautical miles off Myanmar's southern coast in the Andaman Sea.
Commitment to intensified search and rescue, future talks
A regional meeting to address Asia's refugee crisis has ended with a commitment to improve the security of those fleeing Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Representatives from 17 nations including Australia agreed to strengthen intelligence sharing and address the root causes of the migrant flows, but they did not elaborate on how that would be done.
A four-page summary released after the crisis meeting committed to an intensified search and rescue operation and further talks into the future.
The United States said it had been given the go ahead by host of the summit, Thailand, to begin aircraft maritime surveillance to collect data about the flow of boats.
Thailand said achieving any more from a single day meeting would have been a miracle.
Myanmar refused to be singled out as the cause of the migrant flows and accused the UNHCR of politicising the issues.
ABC/Wires
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