MADRID (AP) — At least nine sailors perished and four others are still missing in rough seas after a fishing vessel sank in the South Atlantic some 200 miles (320 kilometers) off the Falkland Islands, Spanish authorities said Wednesday.
Fourteen crew members made it onto life rafts and were rescued by two other fishing boats that were nearby when the 176-foot (54-meter) Argos Georgia went down Tuesday after being suddenly flooded with water.
Pedro Blanco, representative of Spain’s government in the northwest region of Galicia, where several of the sailors were from, said two of the dead were Spaniards.
The pair were the ship’s captain, a native of the city of Vigo, and the cook, from the town of Baiona, located just south of Vigo on Spain’s northwest coast.
Blanco said that the 27-person crew included 10 Spaniards, eight Russians, five Indonesians, two Uruguayans and two Peruvians. He said that his information came from Falkland authorities.
Of the four sailors still missing, Blanco said two were Spaniards but he did not comment on the nationality of the other two. He did not provide details about who the remaining seven dead were.
Authorities in the Falkland Islands — the British-controlled archipelago that Argentina calls the Malvinas and claims as its own — said they received an emergency signal Monday from the Argos Georgia.
The signal indicated that the boat was east of Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands, when it began taking on water.
A helicopter, another aircraft and several vessels were deployed in the rescue effort. The Falkland Islands government said the helicopter crew had spotted survivors stranded at sea Monday but was forced to suspend rescue operations due to rough water, reduced visibility and windy conditions. The efforts resumed when the storm subsided Tuesday.
Blanco said that the rescue operation has faced winds of 35 knots and 8-meter waves.
The Argos Georgia was managed by Argos Froyanes Ltd., a privately owned joint British-Norwegian company, and was sailing under the flag of St. Helena, another of Britain’s remaining overseas territories in the South Atlantic.