Second Shipmate Found on Ship Full of Cattle That Sank of Japan

SCOTT NEUMAN  {NPR}

A second crew member has been found alive from a ship carrying livestock that capsized and sank during a typhoon off the southern coast of Japan. But another storm expected to hit the area over the weekend is likely to hamper the search for 40 other people still missing. 

The Gulf Livestock 1, a 450-foot ship with a cargo of some 5,800 cows en route from New Zealand to China, issued a distress call early Wednesday Japan time near the island of Amami Oshima, north of Okinawa. The ship's "mayday" was sent from an area affected by Typhoon Maysak, a powerful Category 4 storm.

Japan's coast guard said Friday that it had rescued Jay-nel Rosals, a 30-year-old Filipino deckhand. Another crew member, chief officer Edvardo Sareno, who was initially identified as Sareno Edvarodo, was located on Wednesday.

SCOTT NEUMAN

NPR

A ship carrying more than 40 crew members and some 6,000 head of cattle has disappeared off the coast of Japan after capsizing in typhoon-lashed seas, according to a crew member who so far is the only known survivor.

The Gulf Livestock 1, en route from New Zealand to China, issued a distress call early Wednesday from a position west of Japan's Amami Oshima island.

The mayday call, to which the Japanese coast guard responded, was sent as Typhoon Maysak was tracking through the region as a powerful Category 4 storm.

Maysak has since passed the area where the ship went missing, and the weather for the ongoing search is fine, Japanese coast guard regional spokesman Yuichiro Higashi said, according to The Associated Press.

The 450-foot livestock carrier, built in 2002, had a crew of 43, of which 39 are from the Philippines, two from New Zealand and two from Australia, the Japanese coast guard said. 

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that a Queensland veterinarian, Lukas Orda, was among those aboard. 

Photographs of the vessel taken before the accident show its deck stacked high with open livestock containers.

The lone crew member recovered so far, 45-year-old chief officer Sareno Edvarodo from the Philippines, was plucked from the water Wednesday night after being spotted by a Japanese navy P-3C surveillance aircraft. No wreckage from the ship has been found, the coast guard said.

Edvarodo told rescuers that the vessel lost an engine and then capsized when it was hit broadside by a wave. The crew was then ordered to don life jackets. Edvarodo said he abandoned ship but did not see any other crew members in the water after the ship sank.