Cargo ship sinks in Bay of Bengal with 24 crew, including 1 Bangladeshi
A nearby commercial vessel recovered two survivors from two liferafts, but their identities have not yet been confirmed, the Indian Coast Guard said.
A Panama-flagged cargo ship carrying 24 crew members, including one Bangladeshi, sank in the Bay of Bengal yesterday (23 August), around 240 nautical miles off the Odisha coast, PTI reported, citing officials.
The Indian Coast Guard's Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre diverted a nearby commercial vessel to search for the ship or liferafts and provide assistance.
The vessel recovered two survivors from two liferafts around 8pm, but their identities have not yet been confirmed, the Indian Coast Guard said. They deployed three ships for the search operation.
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The vessel, MV Ocean Winner, was carrying iron ore from Odisha to Singapore. Of its 24 crew members, 20 were Chinese, three were Myanmarese, and one was Bangladeshi, officials said.
The ship was carrying 72,100 tonnes of iron ore fines and left the Paradip coast of Odisha at 10:42pm on Thursday (20 August).
The cargo ship had disappeared from tracking systems nearly two days after leaving Paradip, raising concerns over a possible technical failure, emergency or other incident.
A senior Paradip Port Authority official said the vessel was believed to have travelled around 290 nautical miles from Paradip and moved beyond the port's tracking range.
The Indian Coast Guard had said standard procedures were being followed to determine whether the loss of the vessel's tracking signal was caused by a technical failure, the disabling of its Automatic Identification System (AIS) or an emergency.
