Spain mourns the loss of seven fishermen – and trembles for the lives of 14 other men who disappeared without a trace after a fishing ship sank in the ice-cold waters of the northwest Atlantic. Hopes are fading by the minute.
It is still unclear why the ship went down off the coast of Canada.
(dpa) At least seven people have died after a Spanish fishing vessel sank in the Atlantic off the coast of Canada. 14 other sailors were missing on Tuesday, according to reports in Spain. Only three of the 24 members of the crew of the ship “Villa de Pitanxo”, which comes from Galicia in northwestern Spain, were initially rescued alive by a life raft, as Lieutenant Captain Brian Owens from the Canadian armed forces told the German Press Agency.
The intensive search for the missing persons was still in full swing on Tuesday evening (CET). “We have hope that others are still alive,” Owens had said just before bodies five through seven were found. However, the weather off the island of Newfoundland was “challenging” for the search operation by plane, helicopter and a Coast Guard ship, he admitted. The visibility is low and the waves up to four meters high.
Even in distant Spain, hopes were now very slim that the missing people could survive for a long time in the ice-cold and stormy waters of the Northwest Atlantic. And they got smaller by the minute. After all, in the early evening (CET) half a day had already passed since the accident. María Ramallo, the mayor of Marín, the hometown of the shipwreck, made no secret of her hopelessness.
She spoke of “a tragedy of a dimension that we cannot remember here”. It was “a very sad day for the whole region”. After announcing the new number of victims, Galicia’s regional president Alberto Núñez Feijóo said skeptically: “The situation is very bad.”
16 Spaniards on board
Concern soon gripped the whole country on Tuesday. And also the government palace Palacio de la Moncloa in Madrid. “We are following the search and rescue efforts with fear and concern,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez tweeted. He expressed his condolences and affection to the families of those affected.
The spokeswoman for the Spanish government, Isabel Rodríguez, admitted at midday in Madrid that there were fears of numerous deaths. According to the Spanish Sea Rescue Service, 16 Spaniards, five Peruvians and three Ghanaians were on board at the time of the accident. For the time being, nothing was known about the cause of the sinking. According to the Spanish media, several ships and helicopters from the Canadian sea rescue service as well as some fishing boats from Portugal and Spain, among others, are taking part in the rescue operation.
According to Owens, the maritime situation center in Halifax received information about a shipwreck shortly after midnight local time and immediately dispatched a helicopter, a plane and a Coast Guard ship and asked other ships in the area to participate in the search. “The ship has not been found and we suspect it has sunk.”