All 14 crew members of a Vietnamese cargo ship have been rescued after it collided with a tanker and capsized while cruising off Yangon in Myanmar yesterday.

File photo of Dong Thien Phu Silver, a cargo ship that sank off Myanmar. All crew members were rescued. — Photo by Werapon SC/vesselfinder.com

The Viet Nam Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre said yesterday that it received a signal from the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) installed on the ship, Dong Thien Phu Silver, before it sank.

However, bad weather was hindering the centre's rescue operations and it could not identify the location of the ship.

The VNMRCC officials said they considered the accident to be serious and immediately contacted the Myanmar MRCC to ask for their assistance in the search and rescue mission.

On the same day, the Myanmar MRCC announced all 14 crew members had been rescued and would be sent home soon.

The Myanmar MRCC later reported that the ship capsized after a collision with another vessel, MT Ocean Ospery, at around 1:30pm while it was sailing off Yangon due to bad weather conditions.

The vessel is owned by Ho Chi Minh City-based Dong Thien Phu Mien Nam JSC, firm specialising in maritime transport.

According to Marine Traffic, a tracking website, the vessel arrived in Yangon after leaving the Port of Bintulu in Malaysia. It was unclear what kind of the cargo it was carrying.

VNS