2 dead, 12 missing after fishing boat sinks off South Korea's Jeju Island

Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Two people died and rescuers were searching for 12 others who went missing in the waters of the East China Sea on Friday after a fishing boat sank off South Korea's Jeju Island, authorities said.

The fishing vessel Geumseong, a 129-ton craft, sent out a distress call early Friday morning when it began sinking about 15 miles off the small island of Biyangdo, located just northeast of Jeju, Korean Coast Guard officials told the Yonhap News Agency.

They said the ship had 27 crew members aboard when it began sinking, including 16 Koreans and 11 Indonesians. Of those, 15 were rescued by a nearby vessel but two of them, identified as Koreans, were later pronounced dead after being hospitalized.

The 12 who remain missing include 10 Koreans and two Indonesians, officials said.

Coast Guard Commissioner General Kim Jong-wook activated the agency's Central Rescue Headquarters to launch a full-scale effort to find any survivors, deploying dozens of divers who searched through waters reaching depths of nearly 300 feet.

A spokesman for South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol told Yonhap he has issued authorization to mobilize all available resources and personnel for the rescue mission.

Crew members said the boat capsized after unloading its catch onto a transport vessel and lifting the net, although questions remain about why the weight of an unloaded net would cause such a large boat to capsize.

One possibility is that heavy floating trash may have been caught up in the net, the Hankook Ilbo daily reported. Refuse floating the waters off Jeju Island has become an increasingly serious problem in recent years, it said.