Sailors trapped underwater near Hong Kong feared dead
Eighteen sailors are feared dead after they became trapped underwater in their capsized boat in Hong Kong for nearly 40 hours amid strong currents.
“Their chances for survival are very slim,” spokesman Zhang Jianwen of China’s Guangzhou salvage bureau said in a phone interview.
Divers were searching for bodies, and a Chinese salvage boat was stabilising the Ukrainian tugboat and preparing it for a move from its current depth of 115ft to shallower waters to ease rescue efforts, Mr Zhang said.
A larger boat would be required for the move, but it was not immediately clear if such a boat could navigate through Hong Kong’s bridges and waters, Mr Zhang said.
Government spokeswoman Heidi Liu said rescue divers had not been able to reach the trapped Ukrainian sailors and that strong currents hindered the move of the ship to shallower waters.
Earlier, officials had said the sailors could have found a pocket of air that would enable them to survive. However, divers did not hear any return signal when they knocked on the capsized boat last night.
The tugboat Neftegaz 67 sank and has been lying upside down underwater since late yesterday, when it collided with Chinese cargo ship Yao Hai in waters north-west of Hong Kong’s outlying Lantau island.
The 264ft-long Ukrainian vessel sank quickly but the Chinese ship suffered only bow damage and stayed afloat, officials said. All 25 crew members on the Chinese vessel were rescued, but only seven of the 25 on the Ukrainian ship were found.
The cause of the accident wasn’t immediately clear. Officials say weather conditions were reasonable at the time of the accident and neither ship was overloaded.
The Neftegaz 67 was travelling from the southern Chinese city Shenzhen to an oil field south of Hong Kong.
The Neftegaz 67 was detained in Hong Kong in September 2003 for safety problems, according to documents from Hong Kong’s Marine Department.
The documents said the ship did not provide “means of escape” and “escape breathing apparatus” and that ship personnel weren’t familiar with safety procedures.
It wasn’t immediately clear if those problems were addressed during the detention. Government spokeswoman Liu said she couldn’t immediately comment.
People who answered the phone at Chernomorneftegaz, the Russian oil and gas exploration company that operates Neftegaz 67, hung up on several calls from journalists.
