Solidarity in response to a major shipwreck. An international search and rescue operation is underway to find the 39 crew members of a Chinese fishing vessel that sank in the Indian Ocean, state media reported on Wednesday.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang called on the authorities to strengthen safety procedures for fishing operations at sea. The boat’s crew is made up of 17 Chinese sailors, 17 Indonesians and 5 Filipinos, according to the state broadcaster CCTV. The ship capsized around 3 a.m. Beijing time on Tuesday.
“So far, no missing persons have been found,” CCTV said, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping had ordered a search and rescue operation. Rescuers from Australia and several other countries have arrived at the scene of the sinking and China has deployed two commercial vessels to assist in search operations, the channel said.
A vessel last located near Reunion
“It is necessary to strengthen the safety management of fishing vessels at sea and implement preventive measures to ensure the safety of maritime transport,” Premier Li Qiang said. The vessel was owned by Penglai Jinglu Fishery Co., a Chinese fishing company, and was licensed to fish for flying squid and Pacific sardine, according to data from the North Pacific Fisheries Commission.
It left Cape Town, South Africa, on May 5, en route to Busan, South Korea, according to tracking site MarineTraffic, which last located the vessel on May 10 southeast of the Reunion, in the Indian Ocean.
China has the largest deep-sea fishing fleet in the world, although estimates of its size vary widely. In 2017, Beijing pledged to limit its fleet to 3,000 vessels, after controversies over overfishing by Chinese vessels.