Salvage work is to start Monday afternoon to recover the 15,000-tonnage dredger that sank early this month in the Huangpu River, which runs through China's largest economic hub Shanghai. Shanghai Salvage Bureau under the Ministry of Communications will take on the work, which will be completed in more than one month, sources with the bureau said.

The vessel was conducting dredging near the Napu Bridge over the river when the accident occurred at 1:05 PM on Dec. 2.

The ship leaned over suddenly during work and submerged within two hours, said the sources, adding that crew and workers on the ship escaped before sinking. No casualties were reported.

The dredger, transformed from a roll-on-roll-off vessel, was 146.5 meters long and 22.6 meters wide. The whole body of the ship were submerged, with only part of its control cabin sticking out of the water.

Divers from the salvage bureau said there were a large amount of scrapped steel bricks and wires around the sunk vessel, and that the ship has sunk two meters into the silt. All this made salvage work more difficult, they added.

(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2006)