PAMBUJAN, Northern Samar—Nine foreign seafarers were rescued in the coastal waters of this town when their ship bound for Chile experienced a ruptured hull and drifted toward this town.
The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) station in Northern Samar received a distress call from the cargo vessel Jin Ming 16, a Chinese vessel, and organized a rescue mission in the coastal waters of Pambujan past noon on January 2.
The cargo vessel was manned by nine foreign nationals—a Taiwanese, six Chinese and two Hong kong Nationals—identified as Lai Yikui, Hans Febie, Xilong Sun, XuWeilong, Sai Cheong Ho, Wu Ning Jin, Chin Hsin Chuan, Xu Xi and Ye Gui Jin.
Febie, a crew of the ship, told local authorities their ship left China last December 12, to pick up some goods from Chile. On their way, they were met by enormous waves due to a number of low-pressure occurrences in the Pacific that turned into typhoons.
He said the waves caused a rupture on the ship’s hull, and caused the ship to suck in salt water. This resulted to flooding of its compartment, causing the engine to conk out.
The ship was drifting toward the municipal waters of Pambujan when the PCG received a distress call from them.
Immediately, a composite team of Pambujan Municipal Police Station, Northern Samar Provincial Mobile Force Company, Coast Guard Allen, Philippine Army, Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, Pambujan and Red Cross Northern Samar was formed to respond to the distress call and conduct a rescue operation.
After the rescue, the seafarers were brought to the Pambujan Rural Health Unit for physical examination. Later, they were housed at the residence of the Pambujan mayor where they spent the night.
Bernie Madrid of the Northern Samar Station PCG said half of the ship was already submerged in seawater and was tilting on the starboard when they arrived. He said only the upper half, or second deck, remained afloat, but was slowly sinking as it kept on drawing more water.
With Rene Acosta