Ten sailors have died and eleven others are still missing after a Spanish fishing boat sank off the Atlantic Ocean in Canada, and hopes of finding survivors plummeted on Tuesday after dark.
“Unfortunately, three other people were pulled out dead” in the sea area where the boat sank, Canadian search and rescue services said via Twitter last night.
Shortly after the tragedy, three sailors, who were able to board a lifeboat, were rescued.
The prevailing meteorological conditions – waves 4 meters high and more, strong winds – made the search and rescue operations for the Canadian authorities very difficult all day yesterday. As night fell and the temperature dropped even more, hopes for more survivors began to fade.
When the Villa de Pitanxo sank, yesterday Tuesday around 00:30 (local time; around 06:30 Greek time), it was sailing 450 kilometers southwest of Newfoundland. The boat had 24 crew members.
The wreckage of a 50-meter-long fishing boat based in the small port of Marin in Galicia (northwestern Spain) has been recovered, Brian Owens, a spokesman for the Canadian Rescue and Rescue Center, which handles the search operation, told AFP.
According to the Spanish search and rescue services, the crew consisted of 16 Spaniards, 5 Peruvians and 3 Ghanaians. Many of the Spanish sailors are from Galicia.
The boat suffered an “accident” and “sounded the alarm”, which prompted other boats sailing in the area to rush to its aid, Rosa Quintana, a spokeswoman for the Galicia Regional Government for Shipping, told reporters. Another Spanish fisherman, Playa Menduina Dos, located the bodies of four victims and the three survivors, who had hypothermia and needed to be airlifted by Canadian helicopter, according to Ms Quintana. The nationalities of the rescued people have not been announced.
According to Pontevedra Deputy Mayor Maika Lariba, four lifeboats were found in the search and rescue operation, as well as lifebuoys and various other items in the wreck area. Rescue teams were able to approach “the three – two were empty, completely empty”, he explained, while the third was the sailors who were rescued.
“Tragedy”
According to the Spanish Ministry of Transport, the causes of the accident “are not known” so far. Bad weather conditions prevailed, with “winds” and “reduced visibility”.
“It simply came to our notice then. “The waves are about four meters high and visibility is reduced to about a quarter of a nautical mile,” Brian Owens confirmed, stressing, however, that the search was to continue, “no matter what the weather does.”
Helicopters, military aircraft, naval vessels and other ships were deployed in the area as part of the operation, off St. John of the New Earth, the easternmost Canadian province.
“We are watching with concern the search and rescue mission,” was the reaction of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez via Twitter.
“It is a tragedy,” the aunt of one of the sailors, a 39-year-old father of two, told the La Voz de Galicia newspaper, unable to hold back her tears.
Villa de Pitanxo belongs to the Nores group, which has a fleet of eight fishing vessels and 300 employees, according to its website. A spokesman was not available for comment yesterday afternoon.
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