The tragedy that devastated the Galician fishing community on Tuesday, with the shipwreck of the Villa de Pitanxo in the waters of Newfoundland (Canada), a 50 meter long freezer ship with 24 crew members on board, still has no end. The bad weather conditions make it very difficult to rescue the 11 missing persons, after the ships that contribute to the search yesterday rescued three crew members and located 10 bodies. The situation of the sea is wooded, a marine term of the Douglas Scale – a scale to classify the different states of the ocean – which describes that it is choppy, with waves that this Wednesday reach seven meters in height. Roberto Sotelo, captain of the Spanish-flagged ship River Caxil, one of those involved in the relief efforts 450 kilometers southeast of the Canadian island, explained by phone to EL PAÍS that the situation is very complicated: “The sea is very rough, it is very bad. We arrived here yesterday, and we are still carrying out the search”, narrates the skipper, who on Tuesday had visual contact with the three rescued by the Spanish ship. Menduina Two Beach. I know they were in shock because of what happened,” he adds.
Added to the situation of the sea are the low temperatures, which will reach seven degrees below zero —with a wind chill of minus 17 degrees— and a 25-knot wind from the west (46 kilometers). The only positive note regarding the weather is the visibility, which has improved compared to Tuesday, when there was a lot of fog.
The survivors of the Galician trawler, based in Marín and built in 2004, are the ship’s skipper, Juan Padín Costa, his nephew, Eduardo Rial Padín, and a young man from Ghana, whose identity has not been revealed. The first two live in Cangas do Morrazo and the third resides in Marín, both towns in the region of O Morrazo (Pontevedra). On Tuesday, Padín, who was rescued by the ship Menduina Two Beach Along with his two companions, he was able to speak to his family by phone to let them know that he and his nephew were two of the survivors. The Menduina Two Beach It is moving again this Wednesday to the area of the shipwreck to try to find the missing, that is, the three survivors are on one of the boats that are helping to find their companions. Hopes, however, are remote. On Tuesday, the sub-delegate of the Government in Pontevedra reported that the Villa de Pitanxo it had four lifeboats and that two of them had been located. However, the trawler has two — one was empty and in another were the three survivors in a state of hypothermia with four of the deceased — so experts fear that the 11 missing have been trapped in the sunken ship or that they have fallen into the sea, as has happened in other shipwrecks.
The president of the Xunta de Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, appeared this afternoon in Marín, where he underlined the difficulty of finding the disappeared: “We are facing a double pain, the pain of not knowing what the situation of this family member is, the pain of not knowing on what day I will have confirmation, and the pain also, and we have to anticipate it, of people who will probably take a long time to appear. In other serious shipwrecks that the Galician fleet has suffered over the last decades, the rescue services were unable to locate a large part of the crew.
The Galician leader has also pointed out that the three survivors are “aware and oriented” and has highlighted the difficulty of surviving in such a cold area: “Hope is never lost, but the conditions of the sea are as they are, and the water temperature is known. Therefore, the three people who remained alive on the raft must be recognized that they are very strong people, very strong, because it is very difficult to stay alive given the temperature situation and the risk of hypothermia.” And he added: “We are talking about a rescue many miles from Spain, in NAFO waters [acrónimo de la Organización de Pesquerías del Atlántico Noroeste]at a water temperature that, as soon as a person falls, resists very little time”.
What affects the most is what happens closest. To not miss anything, subscribe.
subscribe
Before arriving in Marín, Feijóo made a statement in Santiago de Compostela to announce that the Xunta has decreed three days of official mourning in the community: “This is how we will remember those who lost their lives at sea and we will also pay tribute to the great community sailor, who offers us the unbeatable tribute of her work and her maximum sacrifice on a daily basis”.
According to data from the Spanish Maritime Rescue, which is in contact with the Rescue Coordination Center based in Halifax (Canada), the Canadian coast ship is in the area Cygnuswhich is in charge of the rescue work, in which the ships also participate or will participate throughout this Wednesday nexus (Canadian), the Spanish River Caxil and Menduiña Two Beach and the portuguese Franca da Morte, Lutador, Pascual Atlántico and Novo Virgem da Barca. Canada has also mobilized a Coast Guard aircraft to conduct the search from the air. In addition, the Spanish Consul General in Montreal, Luis Seco, has traveled to San Juan de Terranova to offer support and assistance.
The Villa de Pitanxo, based in Marín (Pontevedra), had 24 crew members on board, of which 16 have Spanish nationality, five are Peruvians and three Ghanaians. The vessel, which was fishing in the NAFO fishing grounds, issued two alerts at 5:24 am on Tuesday (Spanish time). These were received at the National Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (CNCS) in Madrid, but despite the fact that the authorities tried to contact them on several occasions, no one responded. The signal from the ship’s blue box — the positioning system, which communicates with the station that tracks the ship, much like the black box used by airplanes — was lost shortly before 6 a.m. The fishing boat, owned by the Galician shipowner Manuel Nores —owner of the Nores group—, is part of the Cooperative of Fishing Shipowners of the Port of Vigo (ARVI).
Minute of silence in the Congress and in the Parliament of Galicia
The Congress of Deputies and the Parliament of Galicia have kept a minute of silence this Wednesday for the victims of the shipwreck during the control session of the Government. “Spain wakes up today dismayed by the sinking of the Villa de Pitanxo fishing boat off the coast of Canada”, said the president of the Chamber, Meritxell Batet. “Congress wants to join in the sorrow of the families and friends of those killed and missing in the accident,” she added.
#witness #rescue #missing #Galician #ship #sevenmeter #waves #sea #rough #bad