16-man crew rescued from sinking ship

A cargo ship's 16-man crew was shaken but unharmed as they stepped off an AFM launch yesterday night after having been rescued from a life raft when they abandoned their sinking vessel.

The Maystar, an 88-metre long Cambodian-registered bulk carrier carrying a cargo of wood, developed a fault in its ballast tanks yesterday which caused it to list heavily to starboard, prompting the captain to give the order to abandon ship 26 miles off Delimara.

A distress call, sent out when the ship started taking in water, was picked up by the Armed Forces, who dispatched two Italian military mission helicopters and a local rescue launch. The AFM also directed other merchant ships to approach the sinking Maystar to lend assistance.

The crew gathered personal items and documents and abandoned ship on a life raft. The first ship on the scene was the Sea Flower, a merchant vessel which picked up the crew. They were later transferred to the AFM launch, the Melita II, which brought them to Malta.

The Maystar itself, according to information provided by the AFM, was still drifting freely with the current.

The ship's captain, according to the AFM, believes that it would take a considerable amount of time for it to sink completely.