BEIJING, FEB. 21 -- The bodies of two more dead sailors were recovered yesterday afternoon from the East China Sea where the Panamanian freighter they worked on ran into the rocks and sunk late Thursday night.

    Another 29 crew members are still missing.

    Two sailors were pulled from the sea alive and five others died on Friday several hours after the ship, Heng Da 1, hit rocks in heavy waves and quickly sank around midnight Thursday.

    A team of 14 rescue workers including 10 divers and ship engineers from the Shanghai-based Donghai Rescue Bureau, as well as helicopters and rescue vessels, had been searching the sea near Fujian Province over the past four days.Rescuers finally managed to spot the ship yesterday afternoon when low tides left part of the mast exposed. The discovery wasn't necessarily good news.

    "We were sorry to find that it was very likely the front mast, which means the vessel sank on its rear. The result could be most of the crew didn't have time to escape and were kept inside the working cabins that are usually in the rear of a ship," said Tang Panrun, an official with the rescue operation.The 5,000-ton ship was headed to Indonesia with 37 crew members on board when it went down.

    One of the two survivors, 27-year-old He Jinliang, struggled in the sea for nearly nine hours before he was finally spotted by a rescue ship on Friday.

    The Liaoning Province native clung closely to two crewmates and witnessed them passing away one by one while struggling desperately for life in the darkness.

    "We chatted, about our family, our childhood and sometimes I even lied and said I saw a ship passing by to keep him alive," He told the Xinhua news agency while recounting his last hours with another sailor, who died on Friday.A young sailor, the third of the trio who clung together in the sea, died about two hours after the accident, according to He.

(Source: Shanghai Daily)