On Thursday morning we awoke to the news that two young people had fallen overboard from Carnival Cruise Lines, Carnival Spirit, on Wednesday evening.

The couple from Barraba in north-west New South Wales, have been named as paramedic Paul Rossington, 30, and Kristen Schroder, 27, according to the Australian broadcaster ABC. They were on the cruise with several family and friends.

The couple were only discovered as missing once the ship had docked in Sydney on Thursday morning. CCTV footage from the vessel shows the pair outside their cabin on a private balcony before going overboard, roughly 75 miles off the coast of Forster on Wednesday evening.

Sadly the search for the pair, off the south eastern coast of Australia has today been called off according to news broadcaster NBC.

Detective Superintendent Mark Hutchings, of New South Wales Police, told the APTN news service that he had studied the video footage.

“It was at night time so you can’t really tell whether it was a male or female that went over first, they went over around the same time,”

he added. “But again, without further investigating everything else that may have gone one, it was a bit hard to speculate exactly about what occurred just from that (footage).”

“We’ve called off the search now and it won’t resume,”

However, he added: “It will resume if we get any confirmed sightings. Concrete evidence that, yes, they are out there and they need rescue.”

He said officers would try to determine the circumstances of their disappearance.

Schroder’s family issued a statement requesting “privacy and understanding while we come to terms with our beautiful girl’s tragic accident”