Bodies of two Filipino seamen found

The remains of two Filipino seamen reported missing after a Panamanian-registered vessel sank off a remote island in Japan were found Friday night by Japanese rescuers, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said yesterday.

Foreign Affairs Spokesman Victoriano Lecaros said Filipino seamen Rogelio Nofre and James Sampayan drowned after their cargo ship, M/V Pendola, sank at about 1 a.m. (12 midnight, Manila time) off the coast of North Daito Island, which is a part of the Okinawa group of islands.

The Philippine embassy in Tokyo reported that rescuers from the Japanese Defense Agency found the two bodies at around 6 p.m. (5 p.m. Manila time) Friday in the vicinity where the ship sank.

Nofre and Sampayan were among 14 Filipino crewmen aboard the ill-fated M/V Pendola that capsized.

The ship was carrying 6,000 cubic meters of lumber from the Solomon Islands to Kumamoto port of Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture.

The two were earlier listed as missing along with the ship’s Korean captain and chief engineer.