By Jatindra Dash, Nidhi Verma and Saurabh Sharma
NEW DELHI, Aug 23 (Reuters) – India’s coastguard and navy continued search-and-rescue operations off the eastern coast on Sunday after a Panama-flagged bulk carrier carrying 24 crew members sank, with two Chinese nationals rescued, a senior official said.
The two Chinese seafarers said the vessel, called the Ocean Winner, had developed a list on Friday and sank within eight minutes, forcing the crew to abandon ship, Shyam Jagannathan, director general of India’s Maritime Administration, told Reuters.
Jagannathan said the chances of finding survivors generally fall sharply after the first 12 hours, but rescuers were continuing their search.
“All agencies are coordinating closely and actively doing search and rescue efforts,” Sarbananda Sonowal, federal minister for the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, said in a social media post.
MISSING CREW MEMBERS
The missing crew members include 18 more Chinese nationals, three Myanmar nationals and one Bangladeshi, according to India’s coastguard.
The Indian Navy is closely coordinating with the coastguard to locate the missing seafarers, the Navy said in a post on X.
Two coastguard vessels from Sri Vijaya Puram, formerly known as Port Blair, the capital of India’s Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, were dispatched for the search-and-rescue operation, a coastguard spokesperson said.
The Ocean Winner was carrying iron ore bound for China after departing from India’s eastern Paradip port on Friday, according to an initial report prepared by India’s Maritime Administration.
It sank about 240 nautical miles from the port, according to government sources.
The cause of the sinking was not immediately known.
(Additional reporting by Disha Mishra in Bengaluru; Writing by Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Helen Popper)
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