Eight sailors drowned Sunday as they sought to flee their storm-tossed ship near the far-eastern Russian port of Vladivostok, the regional emergency rescue center said.
The crew of the New Star abandonded ship about 50 kilometres (30 miles) offshore in the Sea of Japan after the captain sent a distress signal saying the vessel had begun to roll sharply onto its right side. Half of the 16-member crew on the Sierra Leone-flagged ship, which included Chinese and Indonesian citizens, were saved by a nearby Russian vessel.
"During the next attempt to rescue people, six of them were injured and then drowned. Earlier, two members of the crew were washed off their life raft by a wave," a captain at the Vladivostok Emergency Rescue Center told AFP. He added that "rescuers are trying to raise the bodies of the lost seamen," but that the rescue efforts were being made difficult by winds of 25 kilometres per hour and waves of more than six metres.