Mainland authorities say another sailor has been rescued from an engineering vessel which snapped in two in waters southwest of Hong Kong as Typhoon Chaba passed through the area on Saturday.

Twelve bodies have also been found in the sea.

According to broadcaster CCTV, a sailor was pulled to safety in the early hours of Monday and was in a stable condition.

A total of four crew members have now been rescued but several are still unaccounted for and the rescue mission continues.

Hong Kong’s Government Flying Service (GFS) is taking part in the operation, having sent all of its planes and helicopters to search for the missing crew.

Air Crewman Officer III Cyrus Szeto from the service told an RTHK programme on Monday how he rescued three men on Saturday.

“The three crew members were holding onto some railings. It was already very slanted, almost like a scene from the Titanic movie. If they had lost their grip and couldn’t hold on, they would have fallen into the water,” he said.

Szeto said that usually they rescue people one by one, but since they felt they had no time to lose and it was safe to do so, he hoisted two sailors up at the same time and went back down at once to get the third man.

“It was hard for us to assess what would happen the next moment. We dare not guess whether he could hold on any longer. Given how tilted the vessel was, I believe they had to use a lot of strength to hold onto the railings. In addition, the ten-metre waves kept beating against them. Imagine, even if you stood on even ground holding railings, you might not be able to stand still when those waves hit you,” said the rescuer.

“We were very worried about them, especially since we had already located them, we didn’t want to see them fall into the sea right in front of our eyes.”

Wing Li, a helicopter pilot from the GFS, said since the wrecked vessel was right in the middle of Typhoon Chaba, the direction of the wind and the waves kept changing, making it even more difficult for them to locate the missing sailors.

Li added that it was the largest rescue mission he had taken part in.
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Last updated: 2022-07-04 HKT 16:20