After saving a dozen people aboard a freighter that abruptly capsized in a Norwegian inlet, rescuers desperately searched yesterday for 16 missing crew members, most of them Filipinos, despite fading hopes they would be found alive in the overturned hull.
At least two people have been confirmed dead, rescuers said.
PHOTO:EPA
"We will keep searching as long as there is hope and beyond that," said Asbjoern Andersen, operations leader for the district police. "They are still searching for signs of life in the wreck."
Facing bitterly cold weather Monday night on the North Sea, emergency teams pulled 12 people from the waters by hauling them through the bobbing hull of the 163m MS Rocknes.
Else Beth Roalso, of Rescue Coordination Center, said searchers heard no noise from inside the overturned hull overnight.
"We'll continue the search when daylight comes," she said. "We'll start searching around the shores and in the fjords."
She said five Dutch salvage experts flew in yesterday morning to help pump air pockets inside the hull, a process which was still ongoing.
"But the boat isn't stable enough to let the divers go in yet," Roalso said.
As hopes faded for finding more survivors inside the MS Rocknes, which was turned over and partly submerged in the frigid waters, experts placed containment booms around the wreck to prevent any of more than 500 tonnes of oil and diesel fuel aboard from spreading.
The freighter, with 29 crew and the Norwegian ship's pilot aboard, capsized on Monday in a narrow inlet between the island of Bjoroey and Norway's western coast, less than 200m from land, at about 1530GMT just after it put out a distress call.
Witnesses said the 166m freighter, loaded with rocks and headed for Germany, appeared to struggle before it flipped over. The cause of the accident wasn't yet known.
Cecelia Wathne, also of Rescue Coordination Center, southern Norway, said the crew included 24 Filipinos, three citizens of the Netherlands, two Norwegians and one German. The nationalities of the missing crew weren't released.
Arleen Asuncion, from the Manila office of Bergen-based boat owner Jebsen Management, confirmed that one Filipino seaman died. Eight Filipinos were rescued and being treated in the Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, while 15 Filipinos were still missing, she said.
She had no information about the cause of the accident. Families of all Philippine crew members had been informed of the wreck and a center was being set up to help them.
After hours of effort, rescuers managed to cut a hole in the ship and pull out three crew members who had been heard pounding the inside of the ship's hull on Monday night.
"All of them were conscious, and talking," said Trygve Hillestad, a police spokesman at the scene, adding they were taken out seven hours after the ship flipped over.
Early yesterday, Anders Bang-Andersen, also of the rescue center, said there had been no other signs of life emanating from the hull, which was enveloped in the subfreezing temperatures and darkness of the northern winter.
Rescuers welded the first hole shut to prevent water from entering and Andersen said new holes would only be cut if rescuers heard evidence of life inside the wreckage.
At least 15 rescue ships and small boats responded quickly, most from a nearby Norwegian naval base. Helicopters buzzed over the scene in the darkness.
Darkness and the extremely slippery surface of the ship's hull, which was covered by patches of ice, complicated the rescue effort.
Atle Jebsen, of Jebsen Management, said the freighter had been loaded with stone bound for Emden, Germany.
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
RSS