The Japanese Coast Guard was searching Wednesday for 18 crew members of a cargo ship that sank off the southwestern Japanese archipelago in the East China Sea.
“At 7:14 am (Tuesday 11:14 pm in France), four Chinese nationals were rescued, but we are still searching for the other 18 crew members,” a Japanese coast guard spokeswoman said.
“There is already a plane and two ships are on the way,” he added.
A cold wave hits the country
The cargo ship, identified by the coast guard as the Hong Kong-registered Jintan, issued an SOS at 11:15 p.m. Tuesday Japanese time, according to the Japan Coast Guard. She was in a hard-to-reach area, about 110 km west of the Danjo Islands, a remote and uninhabited micro-archipelago in southwestern Japan.
The sinking occurred as a cold snap hit much of Japan and daytime temperatures on some of the islands near the ship barely reached 3°C.
According to the Japanese Coast Guard, the Jintan’s crew included a total of fourteen Chinese and eight Burmese.
Source: BFM TV
