Lupeng Yuanyu 02 Photo: File

A massive sea search has failed to find any survivors after the vessel Lupeng Yuanyu 028 capsized at 3 am on May 16 and rescue efforts have shifted to a 48-hour small-scale investigation, said the Ministry of Transport on Tuesday.

A total of seven bodies have been recovered from the site of the rescue operation.

The fishing vessel Lupeng Yuanyu 028, owned by Shandong-based Penglai Jinglu Fishery, capsized in the central Indian Ocean about 5,000 kilometers west of Perth, Australia, early on May 16, with 39 crew members on board missing, including 17 Chinese, 17 Indonesians, and five Filipinos.

As of Sunday, the search teams of Lupeng Yuanyu 017, Eurasia 27 and Lupeng Yuanyu 087 each found and retrieved one body from the sea. A Sri Lankan warship sent a dinghy toward where the ship sank, and Sri Lankan divers found and recovered one body from the cabin of the vessel.

As of 12 am Tuesday, seven working vessels had arrived at the site. Compared with the previous day, the state of the wrecked hull did not see obvious changes and slowly drifted to the northeast, said the Ministry of Transport.

After the accident, Chinese President Xi Jinping has demanded all-out efforts in the rescue of missing crew, urging relevant departments to activate the emergency response mechanisms immediately, so as to ensure the safety and recovery of property.

Since the Lupeng Yuanyu 028 capsized, large-scale maritime rescue has been launched, covering a total of nearly 18,700 square nautical miles, officials said.

No signs of survivors have been found so far. Judging from the analyses of the capsizing state, wreck time, hull structure and early diving operation, rescuers found that there is very limited space for people to survive inside the ship, and it is preliminarily judged that there are no survivors inside the ill-fated ship.

Global Times