US Navy joins search for 32 missing crew after tanker and freighter collide off China
Oil tanker carrying nearly 1 million barrels on fire 257km east of Shanghai
The US Navy has joined the search for 32 crew members missing from an Iranian oil tanker that caught fire after colliding with a bulk freighter off China’s east coast.
China, South Korea and the United States sent ships and planes to search for the 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis who have been missing since the collision late on Saturday. The US Navy, which sent a P-8A Poseidon aircraft from Okinawa, Japan, to aid the search, said late on Sunday that none of the missing crew had been found.
The Panama-registered tanker Sanchi was sailing from Iran to South Korea when it collided with the Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter CF Crystal in the East China Sea, 257km off the coast of Shanghai, the Ministry of Transport said.
All 21 crew members of the Crystal, which was carrying grain from the US to China, were rescued, the ministry said. The Crystal’s crew members were all Chinese nationals.
It was not immediately clear what caused the collision.