South Korean Fishing Boat Sinks in the Bering Sea

GIKorea | December 2, 2014 | Korea-General Topics | 6 Comments

This has the makings of being another possible mass casualty event for South Korea:

Rescuers searched Monday for more than 50 people missing after a South Korean fishing ship they were working on sank amid high waves in the freezing waters of the Bering Sea, officials said. At least one person died.

Authorities rescued seven crew members and recovered one body, but weather and water conditions were complicating the search for the others, an official from the South Korean fisheries and oceans ministry said on condition of anonymity because of office rules.

The crew included 35 Indonesians, 13 Filipinos, 11 South Koreans and one Russian inspector, the official said. Russian authorities said there were 62 people aboard the ship, which sank in the western part of the Bering Sea, near Russia.

The South Korean ministry official said it’s believed that the ship, which was catching pollock, began to list after stormy weather caused seawater to flood its storage areas. The official said the 2,100-ton ship was 35 years old. [Yahoo via reader tip]

You can read more at the link, but hopefully Russian search and rescue can pull these guys out of the water

Tags:Bering Sea, fishing boats, Korea, Russia

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Leon LaPorte

10 years ago

Which government agency does the president disband in order to rectify this? The Coast Guard is already gone.

ChickenHead

10 years ago

Sometimes you lose your bearings and sometimes the Bearing loses you.

GIKorea

Author

10 years ago

I would have to assume that the 52 people still missing from this sinking would have to be dead by now. Very tragic. So far authorities have only been able to rescue seven people:

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2014/12/02/38/0301000000AEN20141202002651315F.html

Leon Laporte

10 years ago

How far were they from Dutch Harbor?

GIKorea

Author

10 years ago

From what I saw on the Korean news the sinking was closer to Russia than Alaska so Dutch Harbor is pretty far away. The rescuers have pulled 11 more bodies out of the ocean. This will go down as yet another mass casualty incident for Korea:

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2014/12/03/85/0301000000AEN20141203004552315F.html

GIKorea

Author

9 years ago

For those still following this story, the search has officially ended for the 27 people still missing after the boat sank in the Bering Sea:

South Korea plans to terminate its search for missing crewmen of a sunken South Korean trawler this week due mainly to bad weather, nearly a month after it went down off Russia’s far east coast, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Monday.

The 1,753-ton Oryong 501 carrying 60 crew sank in the western Bering Sea on Dec. 1. One Russian inspector and six crew members — three Filipinos and three Indonesians — survived the sinking, with 27 crew members confirmed dead and 26 others remaining missing.

South Korea, the United States and Russia have conducted the search for the missing crewmen, but no major progress has been made due mainly to inclement weather.

A ranking official at Seoul’s foreign ministry said that the government will end the search operation on Wednesday, given freezing water temperatures and security concerns for rescuers aboard a 5,000-ton patrol ship dispatched to the area.

Two South Korean surveillance aircraft and the patrol ship have been involved in the search operation. The patrol vessel will also end its mission at year-end, he noted.

The official also said South Korean fishing vessels, which have been engaged in the operation, will be inevitably withdrawn from the accident scene as they are permitted to do fishing only until the end of this year.

A Russian ship carrying six survivors and 21 bodies of Southeast Asian victims arrived at South Korea’s southeastern port of Busan on Friday after sailing for more than two weeks.

The bodies of six other South Koreans have not been brought home yet at the request of their bereaved families who asked for the search to be finished first.

https://www.rokdrop.net/2014/12/south-korean-fishing-boat-sinks-in-the-bering-sea/

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