US Coast Guard rescuers on Monday pulled four trapped men alive from a capsized cargo ship, drilling into the hull’s steel plates to extract the crew members more than a day after their vessel overturned while leaving a port in Brunswick, Georgia.
All four were described as alert and in relatively good condition, and were taken to a hospital for further evaluation.
“Best day of my 16-year career,” said US Coast Guard Lieutenant Lloyd Heflin, who was coordinating the effort.
Photo: EPA-EFE
A video posted online by the coast guard showed responders clapping and cheering as the final man, wearing only shorts, climbed out of a hole in the hull and stood up.
Three of the South Korean crew members came out in the middle of the afternoon. The fourth man, who was trapped in a separate compartment, emerged three hours later.
The rescues followed nearly 36 hours of work after the Golden Ray, a giant ship that carries vehicles, rolled onto its side early on Sunday as it was leaving Brunswick, bound for Baltimore, Maryland.
“All crew members are accounted for,” the US Coast Guard Southeast tweeted. “Operations will now shift fully to environmental protection, removing the vessel and resuming commerce.”
In the hours immediately after the accident, the coast guard lifted 20 crew members into helicopters before determining that smoke and flames and unstable cargo made it too risky to venture further inside the vessel.
That left responders looking for the remaining four crew members.
Rescuers thought the noises that they were hearing inside could be some of the vehicles crashing around, but by dawn on Monday, they were confident that the taps were responses to their own taps, indicating that someone was alive inside.
“They were charged up knowing people were alive,” US Coast Guard Captain John Reed said.
On Monday, responders began drilling, starting with a 7.5cm hole.
US Coast Guard personnel brought the Golden Ray’s chief engineer, who was rescued Sunday, out to the ship to translate and found that three of the men were “on board and okay,” as Heflin put it.
Responders set up a tent on the hull and began drilling additional holes, eventually making an opening large enough to insert a ladder and help the men climb out.
“It was like connect the dots,” Reed said of the hole, which grew to 60cm by 1m.
The fourth rescue was a greater challenge.
That crewman was behind glass in a separate engineering compartment on another deck, Reed said.
The Golden Ray is now stuck in the shipping channel, closing one of the busiest US seaports.
One ship is unable to leave the port, and four more vessels are lined up outside and waiting to come in, ship-tracking Web site Marine Traffic said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese