Five dead, several other crews missing as S. Korean boat sinks in Antarctica

Seoul, Dec 13 (ANI): Five crew members were reported killed on Monday when a South Korean fishing trawler sank in the chilling waters off Antarctica. Seventeen other crew were said to be missing and presumed dead, New Zealand rescue officials said.

Among the crew members, 20 were reportedly rescued by a nearby South Korean fishing boat.

The New York Times quoted Dave Wilson, an official with the Rescue Coordination Center New Zealand, based in Wellington, as saying that the officials were also looking for two other vessels, but stopped their search operations on realising that the missing crew are unlikely to have survived the mishap.

There was no immediate indication for the cause of the sinking, and the agency said no distress call had been issued, the paper said.

The 190-foot trawler, the In Sung No. 1, sank around 6:30 a.m., about 1,150 miles north of McMurdo Station, according to a United States science and research center on New Zealand's Ross Island, in Antarctica.

The rescue agency said in a statement that the water temperature in the area was 2 degrees Celsius when the incident took place.

"Survival times in the water are about 10 minutes without lifejackets or immersion suits," it added.

The 'In Sung' is reportedly based in Pusan, in southern South Korea, and among the crewmembers were Chinese, Indonesians, Filipinos and one Russian. (ANI)