Toll Rises in North Sea Storms

Ten crew members died Sunday when a tanker capsized in heavy seas off the coast of northern Wales as fierce storms wreaked havoc throughout Britain and Ireland.

The dead crew members were among at least 28 people who died in a weekend of gales and hurricane-force winds, according to police estimates.

The coast guard at Holyhead, 240 miles northwest of London, said the Maltese-registered Kimya capsized early Sunday morning after sending out a distress signal.

The vessel “put out a Mayday at 2:02 a.m., saying the crew was mustered on the bridge, and she went over 15 minutes later,” said coast guardsman Geoff Lunt.

Lifeboats recovered four bodies near the ship, which capsized 12 miles southwest of Holyhead, he said. The search for the other six was called off 12 hours later, Lunt said. Two survivors of the 12-member crew were being treated in a hospital.

As the seas died down Sunday, tugs were trying to attach a line to the Kimya, which had been carrying sunflower oil from Spain to Birkenhead in northwest England, he said.

Meanwhile, a crew member was missing from a storm-tossed British-registered trawler in the Atlantic, about 200 miles off the west coast of Ireland, coast guard officials said.

A wave Saturday swept the wheelhouse off the Spanish-owned trawler, the Greenland, taking the crewman with it, coast guard officials at Falmouth in southwest England said. They said the vessel’s British captain and 13 other Spanish crew members were safe.

Ireland counted 13 storm-related deaths, including six Swiss tourists and a teen-ager whose minibus was crushed by a huge tree blown down late Saturday in the western county of Galway.