South Korea’s foreign minister vows to mobilise all resources to track down missing Stellar Daisy
South Korea’s foreign minister visited the headquarters of Polaris Shipping in Busan yesterday and vowed to up resources in the investigation into the missing Stellar Daisy VLOC, which was presumed to have sunk in the South Atlantic 12 days ago.
VLOC, which was Yun Byung-se promised families of the missing seafarers that the government will mobilise all resources for the ongoing search and rescue mission off Uruguay.
Just two seafarers out of the total crew of 24 are believed to have survived when the ship, carrying 260,000 of Vale’s iron ore, took on water, listed quickly and snapped in two. A number of empty liferafts, thermal suits and an oil slick has been all the eight-ship strong multinational team scouring the South Atlantic have been able to find to date.
Yun said he would be raising the matter with the acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn on his return to Seoul and he would also seek to meet and interview the two surviving Filipino seafarers. Eight Koreans and another 14 Filipinos are feared to have perished when the 1993-built converted VLCC sank.
With a crack appearing on the hull of another Polaris 1993-built converted VLCC, the Korean line has sought to carry out immediate urgent checks on its entire fleet.
