8 Crew Lacking After Cargo Ship Sinks Between Japan, South Korea

Tokyo:

Japan and South Korea’s coast guards had been looking Wednesday for eight crew from a cargo ship that sank between the 2 international locations, after 14 others had been rescued.

“A complete of 14 have been rescued,” a spokesman for the Japanese coast guard informed AFP.

“We do not know their situation and nationalities but,” he added, declining to be named.

He mentioned six of the crew had been rescued by South Korea’s coast guard, which was helping the operation.

Eleven of these rescued to date had been “unconscious”, the Jeju Coast Guard informed AFP, including that the rescued crew members had been being transported to Japan’s southwestern Nagasaki.

The Jin Tian despatched a misery sign late on Tuesday night from a place round 110 kilometres (68 miles) west of the distant and uninhabited Danjo islands in far southwestern Japan.

Three personal ships had been within the space and helped choose up a number of of the stranded crew members, Japan’s coast guard mentioned.

A Japanese coast guard airplane and two ships had been on the scene, with further Japanese and South Korean vessels en route, officers from each international locations mentioned.

The ship’s captain used a satellite tv for pc cellphone to inform South Korean coast guard officers that he and the crew would abandon the sinking ship within the early hours of Wednesday morning, the Jeju Coast Guard mentioned.

Contact with the crew was then misplaced.

Japan’s authorities spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno confirmed that the nation’s coast guard was cooperating with South Korean authorities within the rescue mission.

The accident got here as a chilly snap hits a lot of Asia, with daytime temperatures in a number of the Japanese islands nearest the rescue website reaching simply three levels Celsius.

The 6,651-ton Jin Tian is registered in Hong Kong, and the crew on board included 14 Chinese language nationals and eight individuals from Myanmar, Japan’s coast guard mentioned.

In 2020, a cargo ship with 43 crew and 6,000 cattle on board sank off southwestern Japan after being caught up in a storm. Two crew survived.

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