Two people are unaccounted for, after a recreational boat, carrying six people onboard, collided with an oyster barge being pushed by a tug near the James River Bridge, Virginia, on Saturday morning, according to the US Coast Guard. Four people were rescued by Good Samaritan vessels.
A fishing ship collided with an unidentified cargo ship in Vietnam’s northern Quang Ninh province, in July 15. As a result, seven fishermen fell into the sea, while three went missing. Four fishermen were rescued and brought onshore for medical treatment. Rescuers are now searching for the three Vietnamese fishermen.
The freighter Shunqiang 2, which at the time of the incident was carrying 3,000 tonnes of rolled steel, collided with another vessel and sank in the Wusongkou anchorage near Shanghai, causing 13 people to fall overboard. Only three of them have been rescued. Search and rescue efforts are currently taking place.
The UK Coast Guard has issued kill cord safety advice, after two men were thrown from their speedboat in the afternoon hours of 12 July. The kill cord, as the name suggests, is designed to ‘kill’ a boat engine, in case the driver goes overboard.
No matter where an accident occurs, the rescue of persons in distress at sea will be co-coordinated by a SAR organization and assist ships in distress, not only because of international treaties such as SOLAS and SAR Convention of 1979, but also due to moral obligation.
Italy did not allow a commercial vessel carrying an Italian flag to bring ashore rescued migrants, committing to its policy not to accept immigrants. A commercial ship rescued 66 migrants on Monday, despite the fact that Libyan patrol boats were coming to retrieve them.
The first chief officer of the dredger ‘JBB De Rong 19’, which collided with the tanker ‘Kartika Segara’, leading to the death of five crewmembers, was neither qualified nor certified to be managing such a ship, a court decided on July 11. The chief officer was sentenced in two years in jail, as he pleaded guilty.
Five people that have been reported missing from the boat that sank in a storm off Phuket island, Thailand, are alive, Thai authorities informed on Monday. However it is not clarified whether the five survived the sinking are did not get on board the ship from the start. Thai authorities are now trying to verify the persons’ detail.
IMO awarded the 2018 IMO Award for Exceptional Bravery At Sea to Zhong Haifeng. Mr. Zhong is a rescue diver from China who made a series of underwater dives to rescue three people, when the cargo ship ‘MV Jin Ze Lun’ sank after colliding with another ship in Guangzhou Port, China, in the early morning of 27 November 2017.
A boat with 97 people, including Chinese tourists and Thai crew, capsized off Thailand’s Phuket island, the Thai Navy informed on Thursday, June 5. Currently, 49 are missing, while Thailand has rescued 48. Thailand is going through the monsoon season, and the ship encountered rough seas.
