Three sailors were rescued by the South Korean Coast Guard after the distressed ship, Grand Fortune 1 sank early Friday.
"The sunken ship sent the
rescue signal at around 1:19 a.m. from some 130 kilometers away a
nd
took two hours to reach," said Kang Byung Moon, the director of public
affairs at the Yeosu Coast Guard.
South Korean officials deployed a search plane and a patrol ship to find survivors and rescued the first sailor around 5 a.m.
"Because he suffered from
hypothermia, we could not get any information until he came around to
find out that he was from North Korea and that there were 15 others on
board," Kang said.
The other two survivors
were rescued at 5:55 a.m. and 7:12 a.m. respectively. The three
survivors are being treated on Jeju island, according to South Korean
government officials.
It remains unclear why the cargo ship sank.
The ship was believed to
have be coming from Chongjin in North Korea, headed to China, reported
Yonhap, South Korea's semi-official news agency.
It carried a Mongolian
flag, but had an all-North Korean crew. The two countries are
traditional allies and North Korea has been known to sail rented ships.
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