Ship blaze crew rescued in waters off African coast

International cooperation successfully saved 19 distressed crew members, including 18 Chinese nationals and one Vietnamese national, in African waters on Wednesday.

At around 10 pm on Tuesday, the China Maritime Search and Rescue Center of the Ministry of Transport received a distress call from the shipowner of the Panamanian bulk carrier Apollo Triumph. The vessel, carrying 19 crew, caught fire in the cargo area in central waters in the Mozambique Channel between Mozambique and Madagascar.

The crew members abandoned the ship and boarded life rafts, meaning they could not be contacted. The incident took place approximately 100 nautical miles from the coast, with a water depth exceeding 2,000 meters. Moreover, it was nearly 6,000 nautical miles from Sanya, Hainan province, where China's closest search and rescue base is located.