Twenty-six Chinese seamen have been rescued from a cargo that is
sinking off the northern coast of the Philippines, Chinese embassy
in Manila and Maritime Rescue Coordinating Center said Monday.
The Panama-registered cargo "JIN SHAN", with 28 crew members on
board, started to go down near the coast of Philippines' Ilocos
Norte province at Sunday afternoon, said Huang Li, the consulate
official with the embassy, quoting sources of Chinese and
Philippine marine rescue teams.
The ship, leaving from the Solomon Islands for China's eastern
Jiangsu Province, called Beijing's Maritime Rescue Coordinating
Center (MRCC) for help when a hole was found on the crust as it
cruised 68 nautical miles northwest of Cape Bojeador on the
northern Philippines' Luzon Island, a MRCC official told
Xinhua.
Twenty-six seamen, before being trapped in the ocean, were
quickly picked up by a passing Japanese crude vessel while the
captain and a technician insisted on staying on the sinking cargo
to rescue the goods.
The Japanese ship "TOWADA" was heading towards Japan but the
communications had been cut off, the MRCC official said, adding
that the condition of those saved seamen is still not known and
there is no information concerning the whereabouts of the
missing.
Philippine coastguard spokesman Lieutenant Commander Armando
Balilo told Xinhua that the rescue team, including a rescue boat, a
helicopter and a plane, has not found the shipwrecks or the missing
crew. But he said the rescue team would extend the scale of search
and pursue the Japanese vessel for more information.
(Xinhua News Agency February 18, 2008)
