China calls on Russia to investigate ship incident

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-02-19 19:19

The three Chinese sailors rescued from a cargo ship that sank Sunday in the Sea of Japan near Russia's far-eastern port of Vladivostok are in good health, but seven other crew members remain missing, an official with the Chinese Consulate in Vladivostok told Xinhua Thursday.

China's Foreign Ministry has urged Russia on Thursday to investigate the incident.

The cargo ship "New Star" is seen near the Russian far eastern port of Nakhodka in this February 14, 2009 picture taken by Russia's border patrol. [Agencies]

Chinese consulate officials in the city of Khabarovsk arrived at the port of Nakhodka to visit the rescued sailors shortly after the incident, said Wang Pengbo, a Chinese consulate official in Vladivostok.

The officials have met with Russian border guard officials regarding the search for the missing crew members, Wang said.

The cargo ship "New Star" on Sunday sank off the waters near Russia's far-eastern port of Vladivostok. Three Chinese crew members were rescued and seven others were missing, said Jiang Yu, spokeswoman for China's Foreign Ministry during a regular press conference in Beijing.

"The Foreign Ministry and the Chinese consulate in Russia have already respectively raised representations to the Russian Embassy in China and other related Russian departments, urging the Russian side to spare no effort to help search for the missing crew members and quickly find out the causes of the incident," Jiang said.

The Global Times, a Chinese language newspaper based in Beijing, said the ship was fired on by the Russian navy before it sank, citing a Russian newspaper. Three of the missing sailors are Chinese while the other five came from Indonesia, the report said.

According the International Maritime Organization, the owner of New Star is a shipping company of Zhejiang, while the operator is a company based in Guangzhou.

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