The rescued chef of the Bahamas-flagged cargo ship Bulk Jupiter, from which 16 out of 19 crew members remain missing after the vessel was wrecked off southern Vietnam last Friday, has said that it listed to one side and sank for unknown reasons.

Rojas Angelito Capindo, 43, the ship’s cook, who is the only survivor of the deadly incident so far, said Sunday that he did not know why the ship suddenly capsized and sank when it was about 150 nautical miles off the southern city of Vung Tau on the morning of January 2, 2015 (Vietnam time). Rojas confirmed there were 19 crew members on board the missing ship, and all were Filipinos. The accident happened to the ship at about 6:00-7:00 am on Friday morning. When asked for more information related to the shipwreck, Rojas said he did not remember, saying he was tired. The rescued Filipino is being taken care of at the guesthouse of the Command of Vung Tau City Border Guards. The ship was in distress while transporting 46,400 metric tons of bauxite from Malaysia to China, according to its owner Gearbulk Holding Limited. During the search for the sailors conducted by Vietnam’s rescue forces and several foreign boats after the Vietnam Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Center (Vietnam MRCC) received the SOS message from Bulk Jupiter, Rojas was rescued by Oman’s Muttrah OLNG tugboat on Friday afternoon. He was received by vessel SAR 413 of the Vietnam MRCC early Saturday morning.  

Rescuers are seen taking one of the two bodies of the Bulk Jupiter's crew members ashore in the southern city of Vung Tau on January 4, 2015. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Also on Friday afternoon, the joint rescue force found two bodies drifting at sea, one of which was the ship’s captain, Andrin Ronel Acueza, 46, and the other was the third Officer, Dinoy Jerome Maquilang, 23.The search for the 16 remaining sailors remains ongoing.A crew list is available here. On Sunday, vessel SAR 413 handed over the role of directing rescue efforts on the scene to the Vietnam Coast Guard’s ship 4034 and returned to Vung Tau, taking ashore the rescued chef and the two bodies. The same day, the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense sent three planes to the scene to look for the missing sailors as well as any signs of the sunken ship, but they found nothing. Colonel Tran Cong Hieu, a Vietnamese border guard commander, on Sunday said that the two bodies would be sent to Ho Chi Minh City before being repatriated to the Philippines.

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