Vietnamese fishermen rescued at sea by cargo ship

A cargo ship rescued 10 fishermen reported missing during a typhoon in the South China Sea, officials said on Monday.

The Jade Trader, flagged in Antigua and Barbuda, was en route to Hong Kong when it found the fishermen clinging to debris after their boat sank near the Paracel Archipelago.

The 11th member of the fishing boat’s crew, from Ly Son Island of the Quang Ngai province in central Vietnam, was still missing.

The 10 rescued fishermen, who had survived by hanging on to buoys, empty oil barrels and pieces of wood from their boat, were taken to Hong Kong on Monday afternoon, where the authorities were cooperating with Hanoi to repatriate them.

According to the Vietnamese National Steering Committee for Storm and Flood Control, Typhoon Conson had left one dead and 17 missing as of 5 pm (1000 GMT) on Monday.

One woman drowned on Saturday while swimming off the northern province of Thanh Hoa.

Navy ships had rescued around 190 fishermen off the Paracel islands as of 3 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Monday.

More than 600 houses had been destroyed by the storm and 43 vessels sunk or damaged, the committee said.

The typhoon, which made landfall on Saturday, brought winds of 117 kilometres per hour and dumped up to 200 millimetres of rain by late Sunday.

The typhoon killed 68 people in the Philippines, and left 84 people missing. It also killed two in China.