Cargo Ship Sinks in Atlantic; 3 Missing
Three sailors were missing after a Ukrainian cargo ship sank Friday in a storm on the North Atlantic, leaving some crew members clinging to debris amid 30-foot-high waves and 50-m.p.h. winds.
The crew of the Salvador Allende was not expected to be rescued until at least this morning because of the weather, said Lt. Jim Tabor of the U.S. Coast Guard in New York.
Seventeen members of the mostly Ukrainian crew were in the water clinging to debris, 11 were in a lifeboat and three were missing, he said.
Two merchant vessels and a Canadian military airplane were on the scene Friday night, but the weather prevented them from reaching survivors.
More ships and helicopters were on the way. Visibility at the scene was estimated at one mile.
The ship began taking on water Thursday night and sank early Friday 750 miles southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was bound for Helsinki, Finland, from Texas with a cargo of rice.
Coast Guard airplanes dropped radios and emergency supplies to the survivors.
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