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TOKYO – Japanese rescuers were searching Thursday for a cattle boat with 42 crew members on board that a Filipino survivor said sank during bad weather a day earlier on an island in southern Japan, the coast guard said.
The Filipino crew member, identified in a Bloomberg News dispatch as CEO Sareno Edvardo, 45, was rescued Wednesday night after a Japanese Navy P-3C surveillance plane spotted him with a life jacket and waving while balancing in the water. A wave tipped the Gulf Livestock 1’s hull to the right and the ship capsized after the engine was stopped, according to a statement from the Japanese coast guard. Edvardo jumped into the sea with a life jacket and was later rescued.
The ship’s other crew includes 38 from the Philippines, two from New Zealand and two from Australia.
The rescued Filipino crew member, who was reported to be in good health, told rescuers the ship capsized before sinking, spokesman Yuichiro Higashi said at the regional headquarters of the Japanese coast guard that conducted the search. .
The 11,947-ton ship Gulf Livestock 1 was carrying 5,800 cows west of the western coast of Amami Oshima in the East China Sea when it sent out a distress call early Wednesday morning. The cause of the distress was not immediately known, but the weather was harsh in the area due to Typhoon Maysak.
Since then, the typhoon has passed through the area and the weather during the ongoing search is good, Higashi said.
The ship, owned by the United Arab Emirates-based Gulf Navigation Holding, left the port of Napier in northeast New Zealand in mid-August and headed for the port of Tangshan on China’s east coast.
Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), through the Embassy of the Philippines in Tokyo and the Consulate General of the Philippines in Osaka, confirmed that the Japanese coast guard immediately deployed patrol boats and aircraft to search for the missing ship. .
The DFA said that the Consulate General in Osaka is also monitoring the progress of the search and rescue mission in coordination with the Japanese coast guard, which is launching a second search and rescue mission.
It was also reported that the DFA Under Secretary for Migrant Worker Affairs Office and the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Osaka were in close coordination with Korpil Ship Management and Manning Corp., the local manning agency. , to determine the status of the Philippine Marines.
Gulf Livestock 1 sent out a distress call around 1:45 a.m. when it was about 185 kilometers west of Amami-Oshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, according to the Japanese coast guard.
The Coast Guard launched a search operation, accompanied by the Maritime Self-Defense Force, with a surveillance plane.
AP, Bloomberg News, with Recto Mercene