Evergreen Line has successfully rescued 16 Indian seafarers from a capsizing ship in the South China Sea.
On 20 January, the officers and crew members of Evergreen Line’s containership Ever Summit received a distress call from the Bitu Gulf, a Panamanina tanker, which was carrying the Indian seafarers.
The 7,024 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containership was on its way from Shekou, China, to Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia. Upon receiving the call, the captain called the crew to a rescue operation and headed towards the sinking ship.
At around 40 nautical miles off the coast of Vietnam, the crew of Ever Summit found a lifeboat, which they used to track the ship and rescue all of the seafarers.
Evergreen then alerted the owner of Bitu Gulf, Lilly Maritime, to take responsibility of their crew in Tanjung Pelepas.
The rescue mission was the second performed by Evergreen Line after its 1,164TEU containership Uni-Aspire rescued a Korean seaman in the south of Hong Kong in November 2011.
Ever Summit is currently deployed in the carrier’s Far East and Middle East Gulf (APG) service.
Evergreen Line is a joint trade name for four shipping companies of the Taiwan-based Evergreen Group. Evergreen operates over 180 ships with a carrying capacity of approximately 650,000TEU.
