The sea is an unpredictable place where the most unthinkable calamities can happen. Among the worst are boat accidents, and a recent collision has claimed the lives of an entire fishing crew.
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A fishing vessel named Geungwang and a cargo ship collided southeast of Seoul on Monday, December 9th, 2024. The incident prompted a response from the South Korean Coastguard and Navy. Even South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-Soo requested an Emergency Rescue Operation in a bid to save the crew.
According to the Maritime Executive, reports suggest that at least 15 Coast Guard boats and six helicopters were dispatched to the crash site, 270 kilometers from the coast. Unfortunately, rescue teams arrived to find a capsized fishing vessel with no sign of the crew.
A Large-Scale Operation To Find The Fishing Boat Crew
The rescue team found seven of the eight crew members inside the capsized fishing vessel. Sadly, despite their best efforts, all seven people were in cardiac arrest and pronounced dead in a local hospital on the mainland.
At the time of writing, one more crew member is unaccounted for and a search is still ongoing.
The finer details are a little unclear. We don't know why or how the two vessels collided in open water. Reports suggest that a crew of 10 people manned the other boat, which was a sand barge.
These vessels are designed to transport extremely heavy goods like building materials and can weigh hundreds of tons. In short, a fishing vessel stood no chance in a head-to-head collision.
On that note, there were no reported casualties on the cargo ship, and the vessel seems to have escaped the incident unscathed.
According to Maritime Insight, early indications point to human error or "unattentiveness" as the underlying cause of the tragedy. That said, we don't know which vessel was at fault or what events led up to the disaster. It's also unclear how the fishing vessel crew failed to spot such a large cargo ship if the reports are accurate regarding its size.
Authorities have since confirmed three of the deceased are South Korean. The authorities have not disclosed the nationality of the remaining four victims.
