While sailing up the Yangtze River close to Chongqing City, a freighter loaded with granite suddenly lost power and started drifting downstream towards the rapids. Unable to navigate, it collided with a newly launched 5,500-ton tanker worth about 100 million yuan (US$15 million) and then sank. Authorities are currently probing into the reasons for the June 21 incident.
No lives were lost. Of the seven crew on board, four were able to abandon the ship safely before it sank and the three who ended up in the river were rescued, stated a maritime official to the Chongqing Evening News.
A resident who lives in nearby Tangjiatuo said that at around 7:40 p.m., the freighter was steaming upstream when it suddenly lost power and began to list. People on the river banks could hear the distress cries from the crew and the ship’s warning siren.
A witness surnamed Tang said that he saw the freighter drifting downstream, while some rescue workers rushed to ready another large ship to tow it. “Before the rescue operation could be launched, the ship had smashed into a large red ship docked along the river bank,” he recounted. Right after the collision, the first vessel rapidly sank into the river.
Rescue personnel at the Dongfeng Shipyard said that the keel of the tanker was laid in 2006. The ship was completed recently, but has yet to be formally delivered. It is the first of two sister ships among the 30 ships built for a Greek shipping company by the Chongqing Dongfeng Shipbuilding Corporation. The tanker was certainly damaged by the incident, but the degree of damage is still being evaluated.
Translated by Billy Xu and edited by Gary Pansey.
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