SHANGHAI: Shanghai Maritime Court seized a foreign ship that was involved in an accident at the mouth of the Yangtze River last month. Another foreign-registered ship sank as a result of the accident, and of the 14 people on board, 12 have never been found and two were rescued, the court said yesterday. The seized container vessel called Van Manila, which was registered in Panama, collided with a cargo ship, named Xiang Zhou, registered in Kiribati on the night of April 5. At the time Xiang Zhou was traveling from Nantong in eastern Jiangsu Province to Busan, South Korea, the court said. Van Manila was fully laden.
The court said Xiang Zhou sank at the collision scene. The Van Manila allegedly closed down its Automatic Identification System signal system and left the scene of the accident. Family of the Xiang Zhou missing crew have appealed to the court for property preservation. The court said it opened a green channel for the case and had the Van Manila seized when it called at Wudong Port. The judge explained the rules and Chinese law to the Van Manila crew in English. The Korean captain signed the documents, adding the crew would cooperate with the court
