Russian trawler has sunk off the Kamchatka peninsula, 54 sailors dead, 15 missing,63 rescued!

At least 54 sailors have died including the captain and a further 15 are missing after a Russian trawler sank off the Kamchakta peninsula, late on Wednesday, an officer at a maritime rescue coordination centre in the area said. There were 132 people on board the Dalniy Vostok freezer trawler when it sank as 63 people had been rescued.

The ship was carrying 78 Russian nationals, as well as 42 nationals from Myanmar,  and remainder were from Ukraine, Lithuania and Vanuatu, the news agency said.

The trawler wrecked in the Sea of Okhotsk, 330 km west of Krutogorovsky settlement in the Kamchatka region and 250 km south of the city of Magadan.

The home port of the trawler, which was owned by Magellan LLC, was Nevelsk in Russia’s Sakhalin region, TASS said.

 The Dalniy Vostok went down in the Sea of Okhotsk, 330 km (205 miles) west of Krutogorovsky settlement, at around 06:30 local time (20:30 GMT Wednesday).

A captain of one of the 26 rescue ships taking part in the search said weather conditions were poor when the trawler went down, with snow, wind and waves of up to three metres (10ft) high. The water temperature was around freezing (32F).

A spokesman said survival in such waters was possible for up to 20 minutes.

“At this time we do not know what might have caused the tragedy.”

Water flooded the engine compartment and the trawler then sank within 15 minutes, after the trawler may have hit some drifting ice as damage near its engine room.

According to Tass news agency the boat foundered while trawling a 100-tonne dragnet. Sergei Khabarov said that the cargo may have been over loaded thereby infringing safety rules. However the ship did not send out any distress signal before sinking.