Several dead after Spanish trawler sinks off Canada

A Spanish fishing trawler sank off Canada’s east coast overnight on Monday, with 7 people dead and 14 missing, Spanish and Canadian rescuers said.

Rescuers managed to save three crew members after the boat went down some 250 nautical miles east of Newfoundland, Canada’s Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre (JRCC) said.

Spain’s transport ministry said there were 24 crew members on board the vessel at the time, updating an earlier figure of 22. It identified them as 16 Spanish nationals, five Peruvians and three from Ghana.

The Villa de Pitanxo, a 50-metre (165-foot) fishing vessel which is based in Spain’s northwestern Galicia region, sent out two distress calls which were received at 5:24 am (0424 GMT) in Madrid, a ministry statement said.

Earlier Maica Larriba, the central government representative in Pontevedra in the northwestern region of Galicia where the owners of the trawler is based, told public radio rescuers had sighted four of the vessel’s life rafts. They had been able to get to three and were still trying to reach the fourth.

“We have been informed that … bodies have been found,” she added.

“Two were completely empty and in one of them were just three survivors in a state of hypothermic shock because the temperature of the water is terrible, very low,” she said.

‘Saddest day’

The government was in coordination and permanent contact with local rescue services, its spokesperson, Isabel Rodriguez, told a news conference.

‘”We certainly could be talking about one of the saddest days for Galician fishing in its entire history,” Javier Touza, head of the Shipowner’s Cooperative in the northwestern Spanish city of Vigo told public radio.

“We are following with concern the search and rescue operation for the crew of the Galician ship that sunk in the waters of Newfoundland,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted.

“All my love to their families. The government remains in constant contact with rescue services,” he added.

The Villa de Pitanxo is a freezer trawler registered in 2004 that is based in Marin, a small port near Pontevedra, and belongs to shipowner Manuel Nores.

Founded in 1950, the firm has eight freezer trawlers and some 300 employees with vessels operating off the Canadian coast, in the South Atlantic and off the western coast of Africa, according to its website.

“We are following with concern the search and rescue operation for the crew of the Galician ship that sunk in the waters of Newfoundland,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted.

Nores Marin, the owner of the stricken vessel, declined to comment. Refinitiv data showed the Villa del Pitanxo left the Galician port of Vigo on January 26.

Based in the city of Pontevedra in the northwestern region of Galicia, the Nores Group has fishing vessels operating in the South Atlantic, off the Canadian coast and between Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau.

The company, founded in 1950, has eight freezer trawlers and some 300 employees, according to its website.