The Hague:
Rescuers pulled at least four bodies from the icy waters of the North Sea on Wednesday and were frantically searching for seven missing crew from a cargo ship that sank following a collision in a busy shipping lane off the Dutch coast.
The Dutch coastguard and navy plucked 13 survivors from the water after the Baltic Ace, a 23,000 tonne car carrier, collided with container ship the Corvus J at around 7:15 pm (1815 GMT) about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Rotterdam.
The Baltic Ace sank shortly afterwards, the coastguard said. The Corvus J was only slightly damaged, according to Dutch media reports.
"I can confirm we now have found four victims. Seven others are still missing," Marcel Oldenburger told AFP but he said hopes were dimming to still find them alive.
He said that 13 crew members who were all on board the 148 metre (485-foot) Bahamas-registered Baltic Ace had been rescued.
Four survivors were flown to a hospital in Rotterdam, seven taken by rescue helicopter to a hospital in Belgium and two were being treated on board a ship that found them, Oldenburger said.
"They are all in shock" and are believed to suffer from hypothermia, he said.
Oldenburger said the search for survivors was frantic: "We don't know where they are at the moment, whether they are in life boats, or in the sea."
With weather conditions over the North Sea likely to worsen including snow flurries and the temperature dropping, hopes of finding survivors "were diminishing", Oldenburger said.
He added strong winds and waves of up to three metres (9.8 feet) also hampered the rescue operation.
"We will however for now continue looking for them, but snow could make flying difficult," he said.
At least three helicopters -- one of which was fitted out with infrared imaging equipment to search in the darkness -- and a plane have joined the search, Oldenburger said.
The Baltic Ace was under way from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Kotka in Finland and the Cypriot-registered Corvus J from Grangemouth in Scotland to Antwerp in Belgium, according to shipping tracker website MarineTraffic.com.
"At this stage we don't know what caused the accident," said another coastguard spokesman, Peter Verburg: "Our first priority right now is the safety of the crew."
The shipping lane where the accident happened is one of the busiest in the North Sea and an important passing point for ships sailing into Rotterdam port, Europe's largest and the fifth-largest in the world.
Rotterdam port spokesman Sjaak Poppe told AFP the collision would not affect shipping in and out of the port.
In one of the most serious collisions in Dutch waters in recent years, the Greek crude oil tanker Mindoro in October 2010 collided with the container ship Jork Ranger off the coast of Scheveningen near The Hague, spilling thousands of litres of kerosene (jet fuel) into the sea, the European Maritime Safety Agency said on its website.
The Dutch coastguard and navy plucked 13 survivors from the water after the Baltic Ace, a 23,000 tonne car carrier, collided with container ship the Corvus J at around 7:15 pm (1815 GMT) about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Rotterdam.
The Baltic Ace sank shortly afterwards, the coastguard said. The Corvus J was only slightly damaged, according to Dutch media reports.
"I can confirm we now have found four victims. Seven others are still missing," Marcel Oldenburger told AFP but he said hopes were dimming to still find them alive.
He said that 13 crew members who were all on board the 148 metre (485-foot) Bahamas-registered Baltic Ace had been rescued.
Four survivors were flown to a hospital in Rotterdam, seven taken by rescue helicopter to a hospital in Belgium and two were being treated on board a ship that found them, Oldenburger said.
"They are all in shock" and are believed to suffer from hypothermia, he said.
Oldenburger said the search for survivors was frantic: "We don't know where they are at the moment, whether they are in life boats, or in the sea."
With weather conditions over the North Sea likely to worsen including snow flurries and the temperature dropping, hopes of finding survivors "were diminishing", Oldenburger said.
He added strong winds and waves of up to three metres (9.8 feet) also hampered the rescue operation.
"We will however for now continue looking for them, but snow could make flying difficult," he said.
At least three helicopters -- one of which was fitted out with infrared imaging equipment to search in the darkness -- and a plane have joined the search, Oldenburger said.
The Baltic Ace was under way from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Kotka in Finland and the Cypriot-registered Corvus J from Grangemouth in Scotland to Antwerp in Belgium, according to shipping tracker website MarineTraffic.com.
"At this stage we don't know what caused the accident," said another coastguard spokesman, Peter Verburg: "Our first priority right now is the safety of the crew."
The shipping lane where the accident happened is one of the busiest in the North Sea and an important passing point for ships sailing into Rotterdam port, Europe's largest and the fifth-largest in the world.
Rotterdam port spokesman Sjaak Poppe told AFP the collision would not affect shipping in and out of the port.
In one of the most serious collisions in Dutch waters in recent years, the Greek crude oil tanker Mindoro in October 2010 collided with the container ship Jork Ranger off the coast of Scheveningen near The Hague, spilling thousands of litres of kerosene (jet fuel) into the sea, the European Maritime Safety Agency said on its website.
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