Four dead and 17 missing after Spanish fishing boat sinks off Canada

A Spanish fishing boat has sunk in rough seas off Newfoundland in eastern Canada, killing at least four people, Spain’s maritime rescue service said.

Three crew members were saved and a search was launched for the 17 other crew members still missing.

The 164ft fishing boat named Villa de Pitanxo, which operates out of north-west Spain’s Galicia region, sank in the dark, Spain’s regional representative, Maica Larriba, told Spanish public radio.

The 24-member crew were 16 Spaniards, five Peruvians and three workers from Ghana, the service said. It was not clear who had been rescued.

A rescue centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, operated by Canada’s air force and coastguard, dispatched a helicopter, a Hercules-type aircraft and a rescue vessel to the area 280 miles off the island of Newfoundland.

“The fishing vessel has not been found,” the rescue centre wrote on Twitter. “The search continues for the remaining crew and we hold out hope that we will find them.”

A Spanish fishing boat working not far from the site of the sinking was the first to arrive and found three survivors and four bodies in one of the fishing boat’s four lifeboats, officials said.

Two of the emergency boats were empty and the fourth was reportedly unaccounted for.

Spain’s maritime rescue centre received the first alert from the beacon on the Villa de Pitanxo and co-ordinated the early response with the Halifax rescue centre, a spokeswoman with the service said.

The boat’s owner, Grupo Nores, operates fishing fleets in waters off Argentina, Canada, Morocco, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal as well as in the North Sea.

The news was a tragic blow to the port town of Marin in north-western Galicia, where many make a living by the sea. Mayor Maria Ramallo said the sinking was the biggest tragedy on record for the community.

“We can’t remember anything worse than this,” she told Spain’s state news agency EFE.