BEIJING, Jan 23 (Reuters) – China and the Philippines said on Friday they launched rescue operations after receiving reports of a distressed cargo ship near the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea carrying 21 Philippine crew members.
The Chinese Coast Guard said it rescued 13 of the crew after receiving a report at 1:34 am on Friday (1734 GMT Thursday) that a foreign cargo vessel had capsized in waters near the shoal. It dispatched two ships for search and rescue operations.
Thirteen people have been saved so far, it said, adding that rescue efforts were continuing.
The Philippine Coast Guard said it deployed two vessels and two aircraft to rescue the Philippine crew from a Singaporean-flagged cargo vessel loaded with iron ore that was en route to southern Chinese city of Yangjiang.
“The PCG Command Center acquired information from the Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre that 10 of the 21 Filipino crew members were rescued by a passing China Coast Guard vessel,” it said.
Scarborough Shoal is one of Asia’s most contested maritime features and a frequent flashpoint in disputes over sovereignty and fishing rights.
On Tuesday, the Chinese military said it organised naval and air force units to drive away a Philippine government aircraft that it accused of “illegally intruding” into airspace over the atoll.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, overlapping the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom and Karen Lema in Manila; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman nd Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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