A cargo ship sank off southwestern Japan on Wednesday, January 25, 2023. Rescuers are on the scene looking for 18 missing sailors.
The Japanese Coast Guard was on Wednesday looking for 18 crew members of a cargo ship that sank off the southwestern Japanese archipelago in the East China Sea.
“At 7:14 a.m. (Tuesday 11:14 p.m. in France), four Chinese nationals were rescued but we are still looking for the other 18 crew members,” said a Japanese coastguard spokeswoman.
“A plane is already there and two boats are on their way,” she added.
A cold wave hits the country
The cargo ship, identified by the coast guard as the Hong Kong-registered Jintan, issued an SOS at 11:15 p.m. Tuesday Japanese time, according to the Japan Coast Guard. It was in a difficult-to-reach area, about 110 km west of the Danjo Islands, a remote and uninhabited micro-archipelago in southwestern Japan.
The shipwreck came as a cold spell hit much of Japan and daytime temperatures on some of the islands near the boat barely reached 3°C.
According to the Japanese Coast Guard, the crew of the Jintan included a total of fourteen Chinese and eight Burmese.
