Taipei - A Panamanian freighter sank off Taiwan during Typhoon Parma, with 10 crew missing, the coastguard said Monday. The 1,375-ton Silver Sea sent out an SOS Sunday afternoon when it was about 240 kilometres southwest of Kaohsiung harbour.
The coastguard dispatched helicopters and ships, but bad weather caused by Parma hampered rescue efforts.
On Monday morning, Taiwan's rescue helicopters picked up two Indonesian crew members and found the body of another crew member, Chen Lin-chuan, press officer of the coastguard, said.
"A Chinese rescue ship picked up the freighter's captain, a man from Myanmar," he said.
The freighter was carrying 14 crew - 11 Indonesians, two Chinese and the captain from Myanmar.
When it began to sink, the crew put on life jackets and jumped on to two lifeboats, but one of them soon deflated.
When Taiwan's search helicopters and ships arrived at the location where the freighter capsized, the rescuers only found some containers floating on the choppy sea.
Typhoon Parma approached Taiwan Sunday after crossing the Philippines' Luzon Island and killing at least 17 people in floods and mudslides.
The typhoon brought strong winds and heavy rain to Taiwan, triggering floods and rockfalls and paralyzing air traffic.
A 47-year-old man in Taitung County drowned as he was crossing a swollen creek and was swept away by flood water.
From Sunday until Monday, Parma weakened from a medium typhoon into a light typhoon as it remained stationary south of Taiwan, being pulled back by Typhoon Melor, another typhoon that is moving parallel to but north of Parma.
If Parma joins forces with Melor, which is a stronger typhoon, they could form a massive typhoon and cause great damage to Taiwan, the Central Weather Bureau warned.
