'No hope' of finding more survivors after Baltic Ace sinks in North Sea

handout picture provided by the Royal Netherlands Navy (Koninklijke Marine) on 06 December 2012 shows a infra-red image of rescue vessels searching for missing crewmembers of the sunken cargo vessel 'Baltic Ace' during rescue operation at sea 05 December; photo - EPA

“The water temperature was then seven to eight degrees. How long can someone withstand such conditions and survive? From half an hour to an hour,” Peter Boyen, one of the rescuers from the Dutch Coast Guard, told Polish Radio.

Five died, including two Poles, two Filipinos and a Ukrainian, when the Baltic Ace container ship collided with the Corvus J.

Thirteen of the 24 crew were rescued but six, including three Poles, are still missing, now presumed dead.

1,400 new cars, mostly Mitsubishis from Japan and Thailand, also went down with the Baltic Ace as it sunk in around 15 minutes in freezing seas.

Panagiootis Kakoliris, operations manager at Stamco Ship Management, which managed the Baltic Ace, told the Reuters news agency that the ship was only fivbe years old, and weather conditions at the time of the collision were “normal” and that “human error” was probably to blame.

“You cannot control some things. This happened in good weather, normal weather. There was good visibility, so I feel most probably there was a human error," Kakoliris said.

The Baltic Ace was en route from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Kotka in Finland, while the Corvus J was going from Grangemouth in Scotland to Antwerp, Belgium.

Krzysztof Piórkowski, from the Consular Section of the Polish Embassy in Brussels said that the condition four Poles brought to hospitals in Belgium was "stable and there is no threat to their lives."

On Thursday evening, three of the men were discharged.

Rescuers will resume the search for the missing crew on Friday morning. (pg)