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11 sailors missing in Taiwan Strait amid Typhoon Parma

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-06 09:07

XIAMEN: Three sailors were rescued while another 11 were missing Monday after their ship sank in the Taiwan Strait as Typhoon Parma was churning up rough seas.

The captain from Myanmar of the Panamanian freighter "Silver Sea" was rescued at about 8:30 am Monday by the Marine Search and Rescue Center of Xiamen City, east China's Fujian Province. He had been sent by a helicopter to a hospital in Xiamen. Two Indonesian sailors were saved by Taiwan rescuers, said the Xiamen Maritime Safety Administration.

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The vessel sank at about 4 pm Sunday about 50 sea miles southeast of the Dongshan Island in Fujian, the administration said.

Emergency teams from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan had participated in the rescue.

The search for 11 missing sailors was continuing. Among them, nine were Indonesian and two were Chinese.

Strong waves and bad weather might draw the sailors further away from the accident site, making it more difficult for the rescue, the administration said.

Parma downgraded from typhoon to tropical storm Sunday night. It brought winds up to 25 meters per second to Fujian's coastal areas Monday morning. The provincial observatory warned of strong gales in the coming two days in coastal cities.

Two shipping service routes linking Fujian's Mawei and Quanzhou to Taiwan's Mazu and Jinmen had been closed amid bad weather as of Monday afternoon. The route between Xiamen and Jinmen was still operating.