Collision in the North Sea and the desperate search for missing British cargo ship crew – as it happened

The search for the four missing crew members of a British cargo ship, which crashed in the North Sea on Tuesday, October 24 was called off the day after following a rescue operation.

Efforts to scour the North Sea proved worthless on Wednesday due to heavy fog and 10ft waves, with the rescue efforts involving a team of divers and multiple aircraft and ships – including a P&O cruise ship.

A dad-of-five is among the missing people on board the British vessel Verity, which sunk off the coast of Germany.

The Verity collided with the Polesie – which sails out of Poland but is registered in the Bahamas – at around 5am local time on Tuesday, 12 nautical miles southwest of Heligoland, a small rocky island north of Germany.

Of the seven-person crew, only two were rescued and one body was recovered as the 91-metre-long ship sank some 100ft below the surface.

The Polesie, which had 22 people on board, stayed buoyant and was able to reach the German port of Cuxhaven safely.

The search and rescue effort was called off Wednesday morning, with strong currents stymying divers and eating into the 20-hour-long chance of survival the castaways had.

A spokeswoman for the German rescue charity jointly leading the operation told NDR: ‘We have done everything humanely possible.’

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