Ten dead and 11 missing after Spanish fishing boat sinks in Canada

The fishing vessel Villa de Pitanxo, from Marín in Spain’s Pontevedra region, sank on morning of 15 February in the waters of Newfoundland (Canada) when it was fishing about 250 miles from the coast.

On the Grupo Nores-owned vessel there were 22 sailors, 12 Spaniards, eight Peruvians and two Ghanaians.

Three sailors, Juan Padín, 53 years old; his nephew Eduardo Rial, 42; and an unidentified third person are, at the moment, the only survivors of the Villa de Pitanxo sinking.

The bodies of ten companions were recovered from the water by the Canadian Maritime Rescue service and another eleven are still missing, with little or no hope of finding them alive as the hours pass.

The tracking signal from the Villa de Pitanxo, a 50-metre-long fishing boat, was lost at around six in the morning. After the alarm was raised, rescue boats and helicopters were sent to the area, which spotted four open life rafts in the vicinity of where the fishing boat sank.

Two of the life rafts were empty and in the third the rescued crew members were found. They were in a state of hypothermic shock "because the temperature of the water was very low".

The Spanish vessel was skippered by Juan Padín, from Aldán (Cangas), an experienced sailor who knows the area well. He has been fishing in Newfoundland waters for years.

Several other fishing Spanish and Portuguese fishing boats have also joined the effort to find and rescue survivors.