KL to resume rescue to find Indian ship crew
KL to resume rescue to find Indian ship crew
KUALA LUMPUR (AP): The chances that 29 victims of an Indian shipwreck would be rescued alive dimmed yesterday as authorities prepared to send navy divers into the sunken vessel where they are believed trapped.
Ahmad Omar of the Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) told AP by telephone that the search in the Strait of Malacca where the ship went down, had been temporarily delayed due to thick haze.
But later 50 men in six ships and boats of the Royal Malaysian Navy, the Marine Department, police, the MRCC and an air force plane, scoured the area off Port Dickson, 120 kilometers southwest of here.
The 31,734 ton India-registered merchant ship Vikraman split into two and sank Friday night in the Strait of Malacca minutes after being sliced by the 85,963 ton Mount 1, a super tanker registered in St. Vincent in the Caribbean.
The collision occurred in thick haze caused by forest fires in nearby Sumatra, Indonesia.
Omar said until late yesterday nobody had been found and plans were being made to send navy divers to look into the ship where the victims were believed to be trapped.
The MRCC hoped to get more information about the Vikraman and its owner in Madras had agreed to furnish the information. The information was necessary for the divers to move about the ship without being injured.
"I saw the ship going down after splitting into two as a result of the impact," said Cartik Venghatraman, one of five rescued alive from the cargo ship carrying 34 people. It was on its way to Kaoshiung in Taiwan after picking up steel in Antwerp, Holland.
Other rescue officials said the chance of finding anyone alive was remote.
The survivors, who were brought to Port Klang, 40 kilometers west of here, Saturday received treatment at the Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital before being housed at the Mariners' Club.
The Indian High Commission was making arrangements for them to get the necessary travel documents to send them home.
The survivors said Saturday they listened helplessly as trapped shipmates slid beneath the seas with their crippled freighter.
Venghatraman, 21, who survived by clinging to floating wreckage, said he heard the pleas of his trapped shipmates as the boat sank in less than a minute. "By the grace of God I am still alive."
There were no casualties reported on the Mount 1, which was heading north to Madras from Singapore, and the Marine Department said there were no oil spills.
The collision happened about ten hours after an Indonesian jetliner crashed 410 kilometers while descending through the thick haze that has choked much of Southeast Asia, killing all 234 aboard.
It was unclear whether the smoke played a role in either crash and officials said they were not ruling that out and investigations were continuing.
Visibility was about one and a half kilometers in the area where the ships collided.
The five survivors said the impact threw them into the sea, where they were rescued hours later by a Thai cargo vessel and a navy boat.
Malaysian Deputy Transport Minister Ali Rustam said investigators were trying to determine if the haze was a factor.
"In view of the haze situation, all vessels plying the Strait of Malacca should be more cautious," he said.
It was the second collision in the Strait of Malacca since the haze, caused by forest fires set to clear land, blanketed Malaysia and other Southeast Asian nations in the last two months.
The MRCC said the traffic flow in the Straits has been as busy as ever despite the haze over the past few weeks and warning signals were being sent through Penang Radio at hourly intervals to ships to be extra careful while navigating in the sea lane.
About 36,000 oceangoing vessels use the congested 600- kilometer waterway every year. Many more thousands of smaller craft and fishing vessels also use the strait.