Crew of missing Spanish ship rescued
Published: December 12, 2004
Rescuers plucked 16 sailors off a remote coral atoll in the South Pacific early today, two days after their Spanish-registered ship hit a reef.
A Royal New Zealand Air Force plane dropped the shipwrecked sailors radios after New Zealand’s national rescue centre got a call from Madrid to say the ship had hit a reef 415km from Fiji on Saturday.
Spain’s agriculture ministry said the crew of the Balueiro Terceiro had called for help after landing on the islet of Tudana i Ra, one of many atolls and islets that dot the area.
No further details of the shipwreck were immediately available, said Neville Blakemore from the rescue centre in Wellington.
He said the first rescue boat to reach the islet was too big to sail across the reef and reach the men.
“It had to wait for the second vessel to arrive which had a smaller boat” which could navigate through the reef, he said.
Mr Blakemore said the crew of five Spaniards, seven Indonesians, three Senegalese and a Russian, were all being taken to Suva, the capital of Fiji.
Spanish authorities had reported all 16 were “in good shape”, he added.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: