At least four people have died and 15 are missing after a Spanish fishing boat sank off Canada’s east coast.
Three crew members have been rescued, and ef-forts to find survivors are continuing. The crew of 24 included 16 Spanish, plus Peruvian and Ghana-ian nationals, according to Spanish media reports.
The vessel, which was based in the port of Marin in the Spanish region of Galicia, sank in wa-ters off Canada’s Newfoundland.
Two distress alerts were received from the Villa de Pitanxo vessel more than 450km (279 miles) from land, according to Spanish sea search and res-cue agency Salvamento Marítimo.
“We have been informed that… bodies have been found,” Maica Larriba, a central government representative in Pontevedra, Galicia, told Spanish public radio.
The three survivors were found in a lifeboat suf-fering from hypothermia, she added. Two other empty lifeboats were found and rescuers were look-ing for a fourth.
“The temperature of the water at the moment is horrible, it is very low,” Ms Larriba said. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he was follow-ing the rescue operation “with concern”.
Maica Larriba, a representative of Spain’s cen-tral government in the northwestern Galicia region where the trawler is based, said four lifeboats had been spotted.
Two were “completely empty,” she said, while in another three survivors were found “in a state of hypothermic shock” and were airlifted to safety by a Canadian coastguard helicopter. Rescuers had not yet managed to reach the fourth lifeboat, she added.—APP
