Moscow: Two seamen were found dead after their cargo ship sank off Russia’s Black Sea coast on Wednesday, officials said, as the search for nine missing crew members continued.
“The lifeless bodies of two crew members were lifted on-board a rescue boat,” a spokeswoman for the Crimea branch of Russia’s emergencies ministry, Yekaterina Miroshnichenko, told journalists.
“The search and rescue operation continues.”
One seaman was saved from the sinking “Geroi Arsenala” (Heroes of the Arsenal), the ministry said in a statement, without elaborating on the fate of the nine other crew members.
The Investigative Committee, which probes major incidents, said in a statement that the crew was made up of nine Ukrainians, two Russians and one Georgian. It did not specify the nationality of the dead sailors.
The cargo ship — which was sailing under a Panamanian flag and transporting grain from Russia’s southern Rostov region to Turkey — went missing from radars in the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, the emergencies ministry said.
It said high winds and strong waves had prevented rescue ships from immediately travelling to the area where the cargo vessel, last located around 24 kilometres from the Russian town of Taman, is thought to have gone down.
Local investigators said they had launched a criminal probe to determine whether safety violations were behind the sinking.
