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10 crewmembers from overturned boat saved in Sea of Japan, 20 reported missing

Four ships are involved in the rescue operation

MOSCOW, January 27 (Itar-Tass) - Ten people have been saved from a fishing boat that overturned in the Sea of Japan off the coast of Russia’s Far Eastern Primorsky Territory. So far, there is no information about the fate of twenty more people, a spokesman for the Russian emergencies ministry told Itar-Tass on Sunday.

According to the spokesman, the overturned boat Shans-101 was found in the Sea of Japan some 50 kilometers east of the settlement of Svetlaya in the Primorsky Territory at 15:20 Moscow time. The boat’s home port is Nakhodka. Its crew included 30 seamen – 19 Russians and 11 Indonesians. At 15:40 Moscow time, the Anatoly Torchinov ship found a life raft from the Shans boat with ten crew members, including six Russians and four Indonesian. “The fate of the rest twenty crewmembers is yet unknown,” the spokesman added.

Four ships are involved in the rescue operation. “The Atlas rescue boat sailed off from the port of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk,” the spokesman said. Apart from that, it is planned to involve aircraft on Monday, January 28.

According to the regional emergencies department, the Shans-101 boat failed to respond to radio communication at a designated time. “No SOS signals came from the boat, its emergency buoy was silent,” the regional emergencies department said. “At a request from the boat owner, and An-24 plane of the Far Eastern rescue centre was sent to the area. It surveyed an area of 2,600 square nautical miles.”

Two ships catching fish in this area joined the rescue operation. They searched an area of 280 square nautical miles. Later, three more fishing boats joined the search.

At 22:30 local time, the captain of the Talan fishing boat reported to the Vladivostok rescue centre that the crew had spotted an overturned vessel. “Twenty minutes later, the Anatoly Torchinov dry cargo ship found a life raft with ten people. They were taken aboard the ship, which is heading for the port of Kholmsk in the Sakhalin region,” the regional emergencies department said.

The search for other Shans-101 crewmembers is underway.