8 dead after Hong Kong cargo vessel sinks off Japanese coast

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – At least eight people have died after a Hong Kong-flagged cargo vessel sank off Japan on Tuesday night, local media reported on Thursday, citing a government official.

China’s top diplomat posted in Japan’s southern Fukuoka province confirmed to the Chinese daily Global Times that the deceased included six Chinese nationals.

The Japan Coast Guard said on Wednesday that Hong Kong-registered 6,551-ton Jintian carried 22 crew members, including 14 Chinese and eight Burmese, which sank in the East China Sea off the coast of southwestern Nagasaki province.

South Korean and Japanese coast guards and local fishermen, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, rescued 13 crew members until late Wednesday.

The vessel was sailing towards South Korea’s southwestern port city of Incheon from Malaysia, carrying wood.

A search and rescue operation is still going on for the missing crew.

The vessel made a “distress call” via a satellite phone around 11:15 p.m. local time (1415GMT) on Wednesday, about 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of the Danjo Islands, the Japanese Coast Guard had said.

It was a private vessel sailing nearby that rescued the first four crew members. The vessel later "alerted the coast guard that the crew members had been able to transfer to lifeboats before the ship sank,” Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported.