Chinese rescuers find bodies of 9 missing crew members of ROK ship

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-27 16:17

GUANGZHOU -- Rescuers are still searching for eight missing crew members after a Republic of Korea (ROK) ship capsized off the coast of south China's Guangdong Province.

As of noon Saturday, the bodies of nine crew members had been recovered.

Three rescue ships and more than 20 fishing boats, involving a total of 600 people, were searching for the missing, but typhoon Hagupit hampered rescue operations.

The 4,000-ton Zues-ho ship broke into two parts and sank near an island named Shangchuan, said an official with the Guangdong Provincial Maritime Rescue Center.

There were 17 crew members aboard at the time. According to an official with the South China Sea Rescue Bureau, eight were from the ROK. Another eight came from Myanmar and one was from Indonesia.

The owner of the ship has not contacted Chinese authorities, therefore, salvage operations have not started.

The ship lost radio contact after sending a distress call to Singaporean maritime authorities at 2:15 am on Wednesday.

The Zues-ho, registered in ROK, left Vietnam on Sunday with 6,200 tons of glass material on board. It was scheduled to arrive at the ROK port of Masan next Sunday.

This is the second ship hit hard by the typhoon.

On Tuesday, British freighter Maersk Kithira was also badly battered by strong winds and high waves off the Guangdong coast.

Henry Rossgraham, 52, the chief engineer, and first mate, Gareth Collier, 49, were injured.

The ship arrived in the neighboring Fujian Province on Wednesday. Rossgraham died in the hospital due to severe back injuries and broken legs.

Collier left for Kaohsiung, Taiwan, aboard the ship on Thursday afternoon.

According to the National Meteorological Observatory, Hagupit, the 14th strong typhoon this year, landed in Maoming, Guangdong on Wednesday morning. It killed 17 people in the southern Chinese city of Yangjiang.

Hagupit left China on Thursday morning and moved into Vietnam where it was downgraded to a severe tropical storm.

Landslides and flooding caused by Hagupit claimed 26 lives in Vietnam.