A RUSSIAN fishing trawler capsized and sank in the freezing waters of the northern Barents Sea yesterday, with 17 of its 19 crew members feared dead.

The Emergency Situations Ministry attributed the sinking to a heavy build-up of ice on the trawler, which sank off the coast of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

It said two crew members had been rescued by another fishing boat in the area and that searches to try to recover the rest of the crew were ongoing.

“Chances of survival in such conditions, even if someone was wearing a wet suit, are practically zero,” a source familiar with the situation told the Interfax news agency, citing high winds, a storm, and an air temperature of around minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit).

Ships from Russia’s Northern Fleet were headed to the area to try to look for survivors, Interfax said.

The Investigative Committee, the body that probes major crimes, said it was trying to determine whether the sinking was linked to violations of maritime safety regulations. It said all scenarios were under consideration.

A military plane was sent to the area to support rescue efforts, TASS cited the defence ministry as saying.

Rescue ships are facing temperatures of around minus 20C and waves of around four metres high (13 feet), the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

A port official in the city of Murmansk told the TASS news agency that one crew member had already been found dead in Arctic waters.

Maritime accidents are fairly common in Russia. In April 2015, a Russian trawler sank in the Okhotsk Sea off Kamchatka. Of the 132 people on board the Dalniy Vostok, just 63 were rescued. In December 2011, a drilling rig capsized and sank off Sakhalin Island during a storm. More than 50 people were killed or went missing.

(SD-Agencies)