Vietnamese oil tanker Sunrise 689 disappears on voyage from Singapore
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 09 October, 2014, 5:17am
UPDATED : Thursday, 09 October, 2014, 5:51am
Associated Press in Kuala Lumpur
The Sunrise 689 was last seen in Singapore. Photo: SCMP
A Vietnamese tanker carrying diesel has lost contact with its operator and may have been hijacked by pirates after leaving Singapore almost a week ago, officials said yesterday.
If confirmed, it would be the 12th such case of piracy since April in Southeast Asia, where tankers have been hijacked, cargo stolen and the vessels then later released, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).
In Vietnam, Nguyen Vu Diep of the Hai Phong Sea Products Shipbuilding company said the company had lost contact with the Sunrise 689 and its 18 crew members several hours after it left Singapore for Vietnam on October 2.
The tanker, which was carrying 5,225 tonnes of diesel, was last detected about 210km off Singapore and was due to arrive at Cua Viet port in Quang Tri province early yesterday, he said.
"There are almost no possibilities of technical failure or bad weather," he said. "It's likely that the tanker was hijacked."
Colonel Ngo Ngoc Thu, deputy commander of Vietnam's coastguard, said authorities from Malaysia and Singapore were searching for the tanker.
Noel Choong, who heads the IMB's piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, said the ship was classified as missing and believed to have been hijacked. He said all communications equipment appeared to have been switched off or destroyed, and the vessel could not be detected by satellite.
In previous cases, tankers carrying similar cargoes have been boarded by pirates and taken to an unknown location, and only released later after their cargo was stolen, he said.
The IMB has informed Interpol about the case and urged ships to be alert for the vessel and for pirates, he said.
"We just hope that maritime authorities will coordinate to find the tanker," Diep said. "The crew members' life could be at risk if they failed to act quickly."
