Rescuers of the Royal Thai Navy found one survivor and the body of a crew member on Friday close to where the Bangladeshi cargo ship MV Hope lay on its side.
Chittagong ship owners P&I Club representative Captain Mohiuddin Abdul Qader told bdnews24.com of find in the afternoon.
The 97-metre 5,550-tonne cargo vessel with its 17-member crew had tilted to its side early on Thursday morning amid hostile weather, encountering massive waves and stiff crosswinds in the Andaman Sea.
The crewmen had jumped onto a lifeboat into the sea to save their lives.
Six of the 17-member crew were found on Thursday, while 11 others were still missing. The Royal Thai Navy had resumed their rescue operation on Friday morning.
However, Thai news agency The Phuket News online said two survivors were rescued while two more bodies were found earlier in the day. But in the report it added that identities of the rescued and the deceased were not available at the time.
Thai authorities did not reveal anything immediately about the details of two dead, though it was assumed that both were from MV Hope, Phuket News said.
It said the Navy rescued the two survivors and a German container ship Buxmoon had found the bodies. The ship later handed them over to the Royal Thai Navy’s offshore patrol vessel Pattani.
Mohiuddin Abdul Qader said, “Thai authorities have confirmed to us that Engine Cadet Mushfiqur Rahman was the survivor from the Hope. He is from Mymensingh.”
“And of the two dead, one is Hope’s crew for sure. But we are yet to know of his identity.”
The ship, Buxmoon, had rescued five crew members alive on Thursday from one of the lifeboats of the Bangladeshi cargo ship.
Another crew, Abu Bakar Siddique, 50, was pulled out of the sea injured and was flown aboard a Thai Navy helicopter to Phuket. He is now undergoing treatment at Vachira Phuket Hospital in Phuket.
Two Royal Thai Navy helicopters were scrambled soon after the ship capsized on Thursday and were still checking the areas near the spot of capsize.
A patrol plane and Navy patrol boats were also circling the area, looking for the missing crew members.
Rescuers of the Thai Navy said the rescue operation will end after 72 hours, Sunday morning, Mohiuddin Abdul Qader said.
Salvage work to level the tilted ship was also on, he added.
MV Hope was returning with 6,545 metric tonnes of ball clay used in the ceramics industry after picking it up from Lumut port in Malaysia.
The 23-year old MV Hope was owned by Trade Bridge Shipping Ltd.
Sama Quader Chowdhury is the company’s owner. She is also the wife of Jamal Uddin Quader Chowdhury, brother of BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.
Source: Bd news24
