Four fishermen dead, three missing

2009/11/15

Four fishermen died and three others were missing after a South Korean fishing boat collided with a Hong Kong cargo ship off the country’s south coast, officials said Sunday.

The seven were among nine crew aboard the 29-tonne 3 Dae Kyong which collided with the 3,800-tonne freighter Joshu Maru on the high seas 130 kilometres (80 miles) southeast of Jeju island late Saturday, according to the coast guards from South Korea and Japan.

The fishing boat, which was left half-submerged by the accident, carried a crew of seven South Koreans and two Indonesians, the coast guards said. Sailors aboard the Hong Kong-registered cargo vessel, which did not report any significant damage in the collision, managed to rescue two crew from the smaller boat, the coast guards said.

South Korean rescuers pulled four bodies from the capsized boat but they had not yet been identified, they said. South Korean and Japanese patrol boats, helicopters and planes were jointly searching for the three fishermen still missing. -- AFP