Tokyo, Sep 24: Japan's coast guard says 13 crew members are missing from a 22-man fishing vessel after it collided with a much larger cargo ship off northeast Japan.
The 119-ton Horiei Maru and the 25,047-ton Nikkei Tiger collided about 900 kilometers east of Sendai around 2:30 a.m. Sunday.
An official at the Shiogama Coast Guard office near Sendai said the smaller vessel may have sunk. Osamu Nishikawa said the coast guard sent two planes to look for survivors.
Nine of the fishing boat's crew were rescued. Five are Japanese and four are Indonesian. Twelve of the missing are Japanese, and one is Indonesian.
The cargo ship and its crew of 21 were OK.
