HANOI (AFP) — Vietnamese rescue workers struggled Friday to locate 14 missing sailors and stave off a potential major oil slick after their tanker overturned in the South China Sea.
"There is little hope for the 14 missing sailors," said Nguyen Hung Tan, a senior official with provincial emergency services.
"We think 13 crew were trapped inside the vessel when it suddenly capsized," he said, adding they planned to send divers to recover the bodies.
The sole survivor, a 50-year-old rescued after two days at sea by a passing fishing boat, said another sailor had become exhausted and drowned, Tan told AFP by telephone.
Ship-owners Duc Tri Limited Company said the 1,700-ton vessel capsized in rough seas late Sunday, about seven nautical miles (eight miles, 13 kilometres) off the resort town of Mui Ne, two days earlier than initially reported.
Tan said the vessel's 10 tanks carrying 1,700 tonnes of crude oil remained intact, but fuel had spilled from the engine system, which emergency workers were trying to contain with a floating 500-metre-long barrier.
He said that since the accident the overturned ship had drifted south to within two nautical miles off the coast of southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, and that fuel slicks were threatening to reach coastal areas.
Rescuers planned to use ropes Friday to stop the ship from drifting closer to the coast, Tan said.
"The ship is drifting toward the coast and it could hit the rocks" in shallower waters, he said. "This could rupture the oil tanks."
Trinh Vu Anh, deputy director of the southern agency in charge of containing oil spills, said draining the 1,700 tons of crude oil from the tanker would be "a really difficult task for us."
"We don't have enough capacity and equiqment, it's too big an oil ship," he said. "Our priority now is to recover the bodies first."
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