Five sailors drowned and two more were missing after a Cambodian freighter collided with a Panamanian cargo ship and sank off northeast China's Liaoning Province early Sunday morning.

Nine crew members were aboard the Cambodia-registered "Haijung" when the accident happened at 1:47 a.m. Sunday on seawaters off Lushun, a district of Dalian City, the municipal maritime affairs bureau said.

Bodies of four sailors - three Burmese and one citizen from the Republic of Korea (ROK) - were recovered while a Burmese crew member died after being pulled from the water.

The "Jingfeng" crew saved two other crew members, an Indonesian and a Burmese.

The ROK captain and an Indonesian sailor were still missing.

"Jingfeng" arrived at Dalian Port Sunday afternoon.

Rescuers are still searching for the missing sailors.

The sunken freighter, about one tenth the size of the Panamanian cargo ship, was carrying 2,000 tonnes of sodium carbonate (soda).

According to the Cambodian freighter's shipping agency, the non-toxic sodium carbonate does not pose a threat to the environment.