All four crew members trapped inside a capsized South Korean cargo ship in St. Simons Sound, Georgia, have now been rescued. The last man, who had been trapped behind a glass panel in the engineering control room, was rescued 40 hours after the ship turned over.
The ship, the 656-feet-long Golden Ray, became disabled, listed and eventually fell on its side near Brunswick, Georgia, early Sunday morning, with 23 crewmen and a pilot on board. Helicopters were able to rescue 20 people on Sunday, but four more were missing.
Rescuers started tapping on the hull, to see if they could elicit a response from anyone trapped inside. After a few hours they heard a response. Salvage crews drilled an opening in the ship’s hull on Monday and delivered food and water to three survivors, before enlarging the hole, three inches at a time, so they could get out.
The Coast Guard said that temperatures rose to 120 degrees Fahrenheit on the outside of the hull, and estimated that it was even hotter inside the vessel. The fourth crewman was rescued several hours after the original three had been taken off the boat.
The Golden Ray was built in 2017 and flagged in the Marshall Islands. It was carrying Hyundai and Kia cars, with a capacity for 6,933 cars. The Coast Guard is investigating why the ship turned over. It had just called at the Port of Brunswick and was on its way to Baltimore when the accident occurred.
After the four men were rescued, the Coast Guard said its operations would shift to environmental protection, removing the vessel and resuming commerce in the area. Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/us/cargo-ship-st-simons-georgia.html
