Diving robot finds ‘no signs of life’ as search for British cargo ship survivors suspended – live
'We have done everything humanely possible.'
The search for the four missing crew members of a British cargo ship, which crashed in the North Sea yesterday, has been called off, German officials say.
At least one person died after the British vessel Verity and the Polesie, which sails out of Poland but is registered in the Bahamas, collided in the North Sea.
They smashed into one another at around 5am local time on Tuesday 12 nautical miles southwest of Heligoland, a small rocky island north of Germany.
The Verity departed Bremen at about 7pm Monday for Immingham, a key trading port in Lincolnshire.
Of the seven-person crew, only two were rescued, German rescuers say, as the 91-metre-long ship sank some 100ft below the surface.
But this morning, the search and rescue effort was called off, 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 this morning: ‘We have done everything humanely possible.’
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