Hong Kong - Hopes were fading fast Monday for 18 Ukrainian sailors trapped for more than 48 hours in a sunken tug boat off Hong Kong as rescuers attempted to bring the vessel to the surface. The crew have been trapped in the capsized vessel on the seabed, 35 metres below the sea surface since the tug boat collided with a freighter in thick fog on Saturday night.
The crew members of the 80-metre tug boat were in cabins and the boiler room when the collision occurred between Hong Kong's Kowloon peninsula and Lantau Island.
Marine police divers found the vessel upside down on the seabed Sunday morning, 400 metres from the scene of the collision, and repeatedly hammered on the hull of the tug boat, but received no response.
Seven survivors were rescued from the water within an hour of the accident, but none have been found since and it took until Sunday to located the tug boat on the seabed.
Hong Kong's Marine Department said a salvage company would now tow the tug boat to shallower waters to see if anyone was still alive inside the vessel.
Divers have meanwhile repeatedly gone down to the vessel in a bid to find any survivors and to reach the part of the vessel where they are.
A spokesman for the Marine Department said that given the warm sea temperature it was still possible, albeit unlikely, that some of the crew members may have found air pockets and survived.
However, the spokesman admitted late Monday there was "little hope" that any of the missing sailors would be found alive more than 48 hours after the collision.
"Divers have been continuously knocking on the hull of the vessel to see if there is any response to indicate that there is anyone alive," he said. "I am afraid that to date we have had no response."
The Polish-built tug boat, made in 1989, was loaded with drilling equipment and was heading for the South China Sea oilfield from Shenzhen in southern China at the time of the accident.
More than 130 people from fire, marine and other rescue departments as well as a government helicopter crew have been involved in the rescue operation.
If the 18 missing are confirmed dead, the incident will count as the worst single marine accident in Hong Kong's busy but closely regulated waters for decades.
