Russian cargo ship goes missing with 12 people on board

Russian cargo ship goes missing with 12 people on board

2011-11-16 08:07:32 GMT+7 (ICT)

MOSCOW, RUSSIA (BNO NEWS) -- A Russian cargo ship with twelve people on board went missing off the country's northwestern coast on early Tuesday morning, officials said.

The missing Kapitan Kuznetsov cargo ship was en route from St. Petersburg to Arkhangelsk when its distress beacons were activated at 4:09 a.m. Moscow time while in the White Sea. All contact with the vessel has since been lost.

Russian maritime officials told the RIA Novosti news agency that there were eleven crew members and one passenger on board the Kapitan Kuznetsov when it went missing. A rescue operation was launched several hours after the distress beacons were activated, at 7.30 a.m. local time.

The first icebreaker, Gazprom's owned Vladislav Strizhov, was the nearest vessel at the time of the distress call and reached the area at around 11 a.m. local time. A second icebreaker, the Dikson, was also sent to the area and joined rescue efforts later in the day.

The White Sea is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. Rescue operations to find the missing ship have been complicated due to high winds and a low visibility of 150 to 500 meters (492 to 1,640 feet).

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