HANOI, (Vietnam): Rescuers were searching for 17 missing people on Sunday after a Vietnamese cargo ship carrying 62 sank during stormy weather in the contested South China Sea, Vietnam’s foreign ministry said.
Vietnamese authorities arrived at the scene after the vessel Khoi Nguyen 18 “sank while operating in bad weather conditions in the East Sea”, foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said in a statement to AFP.
Beijing claims the South China Sea, known as the East Sea in Vietnam, in nearly its entirety, despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
Vietnam, along with the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan, have competing claims to areas of the strategic waterway, including the Spratly Island chain, which are believed to sit on vast oil and gas resources.
Hang said Vietnamese rescuers, with “the support of Chinese rescue forces, including ships and helicopters”, and other vessels in the area, rescued 45 of the 62 people, as of 12 noon (0500 GMT) on Sunday.
Authorities and fishing vessels were “actively searching for the remaining people”, Hang added.
The Khoi Nguyen 18 encountered trouble near Yongshu Reef, also known as Fiery Cross Reef, in the Spratly archipelago, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said.
Fiery Cross Reef
is controlled by Beijing but also claimed by Hanoi and Manila.
A Chinese rescue vessel first spotted what was believed to be a distress signal from the endangered Vietnamese ship on Saturday evening, China’s state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday.
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