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Japan’s Coast Guard said on Friday that the body of a man believed to be a member of the crew of a freighter that disappeared during a storm earlier in the week was found adrift in the East China Sea.
Coast guard officials said the body was found in the sea off Amami-Oshima Island in Kagoshima prefecture, southwestern Japan, around 6:30 a.m.
It was tied with a rope to a life jacket bearing the name of the freighter, they said.
The 11,947-ton Gulf Livestock 1 sent out a distress call around 1:45 a.m. Wednesday when it was about 185 kilometers west of Amami-Oshima, according to the coast guard. It left New Zealand with 43 foreign crew members and 5,800 head of cattle on board on August 14 and was scheduled to arrive in China on Friday.
A member of the Philippine crew was rescued from the waters on Wednesday night. He told authorities that the ship was struck sideways by waves and capsized after one of its engines stopped.
The crew members of the Panamanian-registered ship are two Australians, 39 Filipinos, including the captain, and two New Zealanders.
The search for the missing crew and the ship is still underway by the Coast Guard and the Maritime Self-Defense Force.
== Kyodo
