"Sanchi" sank; a day of public mourning declared in Iran

After it was officially announced that all passengers on the Sanchi tanker had lost their lives and that the tanker had completely sunk, the Iranian cabinet declared January 15 a day of national mourning across the country.

In a statement by the Iranian Cabinet, which was published in domestic news agencies on Sunday evening, the passengers of the Sanchi tanker were referred to as "martyrs of service."

Earlier, Mohammad Rastad, head of the Ports and Maritime Organization, announced that "nothing remains of the Sanchi tanker on the water," adding: "The ship has completely sunk and it does not seem like we will be able to access the other missing bodies."

The bodies of three crew members and passengers of the tanker have already been found, but their identities have not yet been determined.

According to ILNA news agency, Mr. Rastad said on Sunday, January 14, regarding the timing of the delivery of the bodies of the three people, "After going through legal procedures, they will be handed over to the tanker's representatives in China and then delivered to Iran."

A spokesman for the Sanchi tanker accident investigation committee had previously told ILNA: "Usually, if a ship sinks, it becomes very difficult to access the crew and conduct searches."

ISNA news agency also wrote in a report announcing the "bitter end of the Sanchi tragedy" that "the Iranian oil tanker sank."

Hours earlier, the head of the Ports and Maritime Organization, in an interview with the state-run IRNA news agency, announced that all the crew and passengers of the Iranian ship had died in the first hour of the incident, citing the cause as "the release of toxic gases and the severity of the explosion."

He, who is in Shanghai, China, said that "efforts to extinguish the fire and enter the ship to rescue the bodies of the crew, despite all efforts, were not possible due to the successive explosions."

Meanwhile, according to ILNA, Ali Rabiei, Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, said: "The Chinese said from the very first day that the entire Sanchi crew had died."

He did not explain why this had not been announced before.

This was despite Iranian officials repeatedly warning that the tanker's crew and passengers might be trapped in the engine room, adding that they needed to board the ship as soon as possible to save their lives.

This was at a time when IRNA had written that due to the severity of the fire on the tanker Sanchi, which was damaged near the coast of China, it was not possible for the Rangers' rescue team to enter the vessel.

According to the report, the temperature of the tanker Sanchi has reached 350 degrees and “conditions for entry are absolutely not available.” The height of the fire is now said to be more than 100 meters.

On Saturday, January 13, a Chinese rescue team removed the bodies of two of the victims and the black box from an Iranian oil tanker after it caught fire.

The body of one of the victims had been found earlier.

Thirty-two crew members of the tanker went missing after the Sanchi collided with a Chinese bulk carrier in the East China Sea on January 6. Thirty of the missing were Iranians and two were Bangladeshis.

The Panamanian-flagged tanker Sanchi was carrying 136,000 tons of Iranian gas condensate for export to South Korea.

In this incident, the Chinese cargo ship suffered minor damage and its 21 crew members, all Chinese nationals, were rescued.

Source: Radio Farda