A SPANISH FISHING trawler sank in rough waters off eastern Canada today, killing at least seven of the vessel’s 22-strong crew, the Spanish transport ministry said.

Rescuers saved three crew members and were searching for 15 others who were missing off the island of Newfoundland on Canada’s Atlantic coast where the ship foundered, a ministry spokesman told AFP.

Twelve of the crew are Spanish nationals, eight are from Peru and the rest from Ghana, Spanish media reports said.

Rescuers had spotted four of the trawler’s lifeboats, said Maica Larriba, a representative of Spain’s central government in the northwestern Galicia region where the trawler is based.

“Two were completely empty and in one of them were just three survivors who were in a state of hypothermic shock because the temperature of the water is horrible, very low,” she told public radio.

Rescuers had not yet managed to reach the fourth lifeboat, she added.

Canadian rescuers said they were hopeful more survivors could be found.

“The fact that we have already found three survivors in a life raft gives us that hope that others were able to either get into their survival suits, get into life rafts and get off the vessel,” Brian Owens of the JRCC told AFP.

Canadian rescuers had deployed a helicopter, a military plane, a coastguard ship and several boats to search for the missing crew members, he said.

“The weather right now is challenging for the search. It’s approximately four-metre (13 foot) waves and visibility is down to approximately one quarter nautical mile,” he said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the boat to founder.

‘Saddest day’

“We certainly could be talking about one of the saddest days for Galician fishing in its entire history,” Javier Touza, head of the Shipowner’s Cooperative in the northwestern Spanish city of Vigo told public radio.

When the trawler sent out a distress signal, two other fishing vessels in the area came to its aid, Rosa Quintana, the Galician official in charge of maritime affairs, told reporters.

A Canadian coastguard helicopter airlifted the three survivors to safety, she added.

The Villa de Pitanxo is a freezer trawler registered in 2004 that is based in Marin, a small port near Pontevedra, and belongs to shipowner Manuel Nores.

Founded in 1950, the firm has eight freezer trawlers and some 300 employees with vessels operating off the Canadian coast, in the South Atlantic and off the western coast of Africa, according to its website.

It has fishing vessels operating in the South Atlantic, off the Canadian coast and between Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau.

“We are following with concern the search and rescue operation for the crew of the Galician ship that sunk in the waters of Newfoundland,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted.

“All my love to their families. The government remains in constant contact with rescue services,” he added.

Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz, who is from Galicia, said she was “shocked” by the news of the accident.

“Bad news is reaching us from the other side of the Atlantic,” she tweeted.

“All my love and support to the families of the crew in their pain at this time of uncertainty.”

– © AFP 2022