The Dubai-based operator of a ship which capsized while carrying 43 crew and nearly 6,000 cattle said it is “praying for survivors”.
Just two crew members have so far been rescued following the incident, which occurred early on Wednesday in the East China Sea near Japan.
The boat lost an engine while being lashed by high winds and heavy seas from Typhoon Maysak, a category 4 storm which reached its peak intensity of 230 kilometers per hour.
Our hearts go out to those onboard and their families at this time. We pray that there are other survivors.
It was en route from New Zealand to China at the time.
“Our hearts go out to those onboard and their families at this time,” said a statement from Dubai-based Gulf Navigation Holdings.
“We also express deep regret for the sad loss of the livestock on board. We pray that there are other survivors.”
The company owns and operates a range of ships, including chemical tankers.
The Gulf Livestock 1 ship sent a distress call from the west of Amami Oshima island in south-western Japan.
The country’s coastguard found Sareno Edvarodo, a 45-year-old chief officer from the Philippines, while searching for the ship.
He told his rescuers the ship lost an engine before it was hit by a wave and capsized.
The crew was instructed to put on lifejackets and he jumped into the water but did not see any other crew members before he was rescued.
On Friday, the coast guard pulled a second survivor from the water.
Jay-nel Rosals, a 30-year-old deckhand from the Philippines, was floating in a raft in the waters north of the Amami Oshima island.
The coastguard had earlier found a man who was unconscious and floating face down about 120 kilometers northwest of the island. He was taken to hospital but was later declared dead.
Takahiro Yamada, a senior spokesman for the regional coast guard headquarters, said dozens of cow carcasses were seen floating in the area.
New Zealand has temporarily suspended any new approvals for the export of live cows, saying it “wants to understand what happened on the sailing of the Gulf Livestock 1.”
In total, 39 of the 43-strong crew were from the Philippines. There were also two New Zealanders and two Australians.
Typhoon Maysak was bearing down on southern Japan when the ship sunk. Its tracker showed it sailing in high winds of 58 knots, or 107 kilometers per hour.
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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