All sailors aboard Iranian burning oil tanker announced dead 

January 14, 2018 - 15:1

All 32 crew members on board an Iranian oil tanker that caught fire on January 6 after colliding with a freighter off China’s east coast are dead.

“There is no possibility of finding the bodies [of victims],” IRIB quoted Iran’s labor minister Ali Rabiei who is in charge of a special task force for the incident as saying.

The Sanchi, carrying 136,000 tons of light crude oil from Iran, has been in flames since colliding with the CF Crystal, a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter, some 300 kilometers east of Shanghai.

“Despite our efforts, it has not been possible to extinguish the fire and recover the bodies due to repeated explosions and gas leaks,” Mohammad Rastad, head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization, said.