Container vessel capsizes in Vietnam

Local media report that just before the midnight of Friday, October 18, the pilot notified the local VTS center of an issue occurred with a container.

The 132-meter (433-foot), 657 TEUs VietSun Integrity vessel listed shortly after that and sank almost two hours later.

The 800-tonne vessel, owned by Nhat Viet Joint Stock Company, was en route from Hai Phong to Ho Chi Minh City.

Transport Minister Nguyen Van The has allegedly requested prompt actions to prevent the 150 tonnes of oil leaked from the ship from spreading further, and ordered an investigation on the incident.

Local authorities are currently responding to a large number of drifting containers and are further working to remove around 150 tons of oil from the vessel.

Moreover, it is added that the Ho Chi Minh City Port Authority is restricting maritime traffic from the junction of the Dong Tranh - Long Tau River to the crossroads of the Four Sides River.

In 2017, three crewmen were found dead and three went missing, after the general cargo ship VTB 26 capsized and sank off Vietnam's central coast, in the early morning hours of July 17th. The vessel was reported to have send a distress call, due to inclement weather, but shortly after midnight, it went off the radar. The weather was probably resulted from Talas typhoon, that hit Vietnam for the first time in 2017.

Moreover, in August 2019, the Philippines were struck by a fatal incident, after three passenger motorboats capsized off the city Iloilo, Panay, on Saturday, August 3. The capsized incident resulted to 31 of the passengers found dead, according to Iloilo city officials. According to sources, the search and recovery of the victims was halted on Tuesday, August 6, and authorities recovered all passengers. Following the deathly incident, the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) began the investigation of the event, and monitored the search and rescue operations.