3 sailors missing after S. Korean ship fire in Antarctica

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Jan. 11 (Yonhap) -- Three Vietnamese crew members of a South Korean fishing boat remained missing at sea and six others were injured after the ship caught fire in Antarctic waters early Wednesday, rescue officials said. The 51-meter-long vessel Jeong-woo 2, which had been fishing in the remote Ross Sea, some 3,704 kilometers southeast of New Zealand, issued a distress call at around 3 a.m. after it was engulfed in fire, according to the Rescue Coordination Center New Zealand (RCCNZ). The distress call was picked up by two other Korean fishing boats, the Jeong-woo 3 and Hong-jin 707, which rushed to the scene and helped evacuate 37 of the ship's 40 crew members known to be on board, the RCCNZ said. "The three missing sailors, all of whom are Vietnamese, are believed to have died in a cabin where they were sleeping when the fire broke out," Woo Suk-dong, the South Korean consul in New Zealand, told Yonhap News Agency, adding a search for the fishermen was under way. Among the remaining 37 seamen rescued, six were South Korean, with the other 31 hailing from countries including Vietnam, Indonesia, China and Russia, he said. Six foreign crew members were injured in the fire and two of them suffered serious burns. The ships that responded to the Mayday call planned to transfer the injured seamen to a United States research vessel, the Nathaniel B. Palmer, which is steaming north to collect the fishermen and take them to land, according to the RCCNZ. The fire was reported as being "out of control," Dave Wilson, an official at the RCCNZ said, adding the weather in the area currently is clear, with light winds. The fire was believed to have started in the vessel's accommodation block, though the exact cause of fire has yet to be known, the organization said. Built in 1985 and owned by South Korea's Sunwoo Corp., the Jeong-woo 2 was fishing for Patagonian Toothfish, rays and crabs in the Antarctic Ocean. The long-liner has a gross registered tonnage of 489 and can carry up to 2.749 tonnes of catch. (END)