Vietnamese freighter sinks; part of crew missing

HANOI - Confusion surrounded the fate of a Vietnamese freighter and its 27 crew members Friday as Chinese and Vietnamese authorities contradicted each other on how many sailors had been rescued after it sank.

The Phu Tan freighter went down Thursday off central Vietnam’s Quang Binh province in stormy seas. Vietnam’s Steering Committee on Storm and Flood Control said initially that 26 people were rescued and one person was missing.

Nguyen Chanh Viet, chief executive of the ship’s owner, the Vietnam National Shipping Line, said Chinese authorities informed the company Friday morning that 26 crewmen had been rescued but one of them subsequently died.

However, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that a Chinese search team rescued two of the 27 sailors and was still looking for the other 25.

The two crew members from the Phu Tan were found early Friday, 20 hours after their ship capsized and sank in the South China Sea, state media said.

Bui Hoang Tien, deputy director of the Maritime Search and Rescue Centre Number 1, said his agency had received conflicting reports.

“We have received unofficial information from Chinese authorities saying that they have rescued one person but the person has died now,” he said. Chinese authorities also said they rescued two other sailors, but the fate of the other crewmen remained unknown, he said.

According to Xinhua, Chinese rescuers found two sailors about 27 nautical miles (51 km) from the site of the sinking, which was about 177 km off the city of Sanya on southern China’s Hainan island.

China’s South China Sea R-111 search-and-rescue ship battled winds of up to 100 km per hour and waves up to 6 metres high for around seven hours to reach the area, the agency said.

The rescuers found no sign of survivors near the site of the reported sinking and began searching a wider area, it said.

Vietnamese media said the 14,000-tonne cargo ship had been sailing from Vietnam’s central city of Danang to the northern city of Haiphong when it was hit by gales.

The storm, which had been lashing the coast since Wednesday, also sunk a fishing boat with four crew off Thua Thien Hue province in central Vietnam. Rescuers have not found the four men.

Vietnamese authorities rescued 51 fishermen and seven boats but said at least six other fishing boats were sunk.

According to the ministry of agriculture and rural development, disasters related to annual heavy rains and floods have killed an average of 750 people in each of the past 10 years and incurred costs equivalent to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product per year.