German maritime rescue announced on Wednesday the end of searches in the North Sea in the area of the cargo ship sunk after a collision with another ship, leaving the toll unchanged at one dead, four missing and two survivors.
• Read also: Collision between two cargo ships in the North Sea; 1 dead, 4 missing
The search to find the sailors “was suspended during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday” and they “will not be resumed” on Wednesday, said the German sea rescue company (DGzRS) in a press release.
The numerous means of intervention – ships and helicopters – once again “entirely” searched the maritime area concerned during the night but this operation, in difficult weather conditions, “gave no results”, according to the same source.
At dawn on Tuesday morning, two cargo ships collided off the German coast, 22 km southwest of the island of Heligoland, for reasons that remain unknown.
The shock sent one of the two ships carrying seven crew members to the bottom. In the hours that followed, two were rescued and one was found dead. Four remain missing.
In addition to surface searches, the sending of divers to the wreckage of the sunken ship did not make it possible, on Tuesday, to locate the missing.
The “Verity”, a 91 meter long cargo ship flying the British flag, sank to a depth of around 30 meters. It was loaded with steel and had approximately 1,300 m3 of fuel on board.
In view of this loading, “the measures to be taken around the accident site will be decided by the rescue operations command in the morning”, specifies the press release.
The “Verity” had left the German port of Bremen and was heading to Immingham, Great Britain.
The other cargo ship involved in the collision, the “Polesie”, docked in Cuxhaven, in north-west Germany, around 4 a.m. (2 a.m. GMT) on Wednesday, after having participated in rescue operations the day before.
The “Polesie”, with a length of 190 meters, belongs to the Polish shipowner Polsteam and sails under the flag of the Bahamas. With 22 people on board, it was, before the accident, coming from the German port of Hamburg and heading towards La Coruña, Spain.
2023-10-25 10:53:03
#Collision #North #Sea #search #missing #sailors
