A Chinese state-owned bulk carrier sent SOS and requested emergency medical assistance after suspected food poisoning on board left 12 of its 21-member crew dead and the remaining nine in a severely critical state.
The Wu Zhou 8 ship is owned by the China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited (COSCO), a state-owned conglomerate that has one of the largest fleets in the world with more than 1,300 vessels.
Wu Zhou 8 was built in 2013 with a carrying capacity of 76,005 deadweight tonnes, and left Thailand on Sept 28 for Lianyungang in China, according to data from ship tracking website Marine Traffic.
After receiving distress calls from the ship’s captain, authorities in the island district of Con Dao deployed helicopters to reach the vessel approximately 60 nautical miles in the sea and bring the victims to a hospital onshore, according to Huynh Trung Son, a local government official.
By the time the helicopter reached the ship, 10 crew members were already dead. One additional crewmember died in transit to the hospital and another after reaching the hospital.
“The survivors are in critical condition and our medical staff are trying to save them,” Son told the news agency Reuters. “We haven’t been able to identify the nationality of the sailors, but they are likely Chinese.”
Son said that it was not immediately clear what the nature of goods being transported by the ship was, but The Maritime Executive reported it departed with a cargo of cassava, an edible starchy tuberous root.
A rescue ship of the VungTau MRC is reported on its way to tow the abandoned bulker to a safe location. The ship’s position is unknown, according to another maritime website, and its Automatic Identifying System (AIS) is off.
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