North Sea: Four people still missing after collision with cargo ship – search suspended as Chinese fighter jets harass US in international airspace

After two cargo ships collided in the North Sea near Heligoland, the search for four missing sailors has been halted. A spokesperson for the accident management in Cuxhaven said this on Wednesday morning.

Rescuers were able to rescue two sailors from the floods on Tuesday, but only one person was rescued dead after the collision.

On Tuesday evening, rescuers stopped searching for the four missing people, of whom there is still no trace. A decision must be made during the morning about how the search will continue. “We will then see how things go and what else we can do,” a spokesman for the accident management of the German news agency said on Wednesday evening. One can only speculate as to whether the missing persons can still be found.

However, it remains unclear why the bulk carrier “Polesie” and the roller coaster “Verity” collided in complete darkness in the German Bight. Around 5:20 am on Tuesday, the “Verity” signal was lost. Rescue workers with several ships, divers and helicopters searched for the shipwrecked people for more than twenty hours – sometimes with strong winds, waves up to three meters high, currents and poor visibility. An airspace closure of ten nautical miles around the site and five thousand feet high was also implemented, the spokesperson said.

The accident control team will investigate possible environmental damage on Wednesday after the collision of the two cargo ships in the North Sea near Heligoland. The sunken cargo ship “Verity” had approximately 1,300 cubic meters of diesel on board. “We have to assume that fuel has leaked,” the accident control spokesman said.

According to the accident command, the 91 meter long ‘Verity’, which flew the British flag, was loaded with so-called steel coils, i.e. rollers made of large sheets of metal. The ship of the British-Dutch shipping company Faversham Ships was en route from Bremen to Immingham, a port on the English North Sea coast.

The other cargo ship, the larger ‘Polesie’ with a length of 190 meters, sailed under the flag of the Bahamas on its way from Hamburg to La Coruña in Spain. There were 22 sailors on board the cargo ship, which is owned by Polish shipping company Polsteam Group. According to the rescuers, these sailors remained unharmed on their ship, which returned to Cuxhaven under its own power.

The accident took place about 22 kilometers southwest of the offshore island of Helgoland and 31 kilometers northeast of the East Frisian island of Langeoog – in one of the busiest sea areas in the world. According to the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH), two internationally established shipping routes run in an east-west direction in the German Bight.

These are the Terschelling-German Bight (VTG) traffic separation area for the East Frisian Islands and the German Bight Western Approach traffic separation area further north. Ship traffic runs across the two traffic separation areas to the German Ems, Jade/Weser and Elbe river basins and to the offshore wind farms in the German North Sea. (sda/dpa)