Chinese ship rescues victims of Indonesia's sunken ship

JAKARTA, June 29 (Xinhua): A Chinese ship has saved victims of an Indonesian vessel which capsized in the Natuna Sea and handed over them to an Indonesian rescue vessel, the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Office said on Monday.

Chinese vessel Guo Yuan 28, which was passing by the scene when the shipwreck took place in the waters off Seraya Island on Saturday, rescued seven Indonesian sailors, six of them were alive and one died, the National Search and Rescue Office's spokesman Yusuf Latief said.

The ship Guo Yuan 28 was on the Chinese-Brazil route, according to the spokesman.

KM Sidik ship sank at 3am local time after being hit by a storm, the spokesman said.

"That (storm) caused the sea waves to come into the ship, while the pump engine failed to pump out the water. This caused the ship to go down," he told Xinhua.

KM Sidik left Tanjung sea port of Natuna, a district in Indonesia's Riau Islands province for West Kalimantan province's capital of Pontianak.

All the victims were rushed to a nearby hospital in Natuna and the Covid-19 Task Force in the district, he said. - Xinhua