Typhoon Haishen Forces Rescuers to Suspend Search for Survivors from Ship Lost During Typhoon Maysak

 Ron Brackett and Jan Wesner Childs

Published: September 5, 2020

The approach of Typhoon Haishen has forced rescuers to suspended the search for survivors of a livestock ship that sank off southern Japan.

The Gulf Livestock Ship 1 went down as another storm, Typhoon Maysak, was churning through the area.

Two crew members were found alive and one person who was found floating in the water was later prounced dead.

The Japanese coast guard on Friday found Jay-nel Rosals, a deckhand, floating in a raft north of Amami Oshima island in the East China Sea, The Associated Press reported. The ship, carrying 43 crew members and 5,800 cows, sent a distress call from the area early Wednesday.

Rosals was the second crew member rescued. Chief Officer Edvardo Sareno, found Wednesday, told the coast guard that the ship sank after stalling in the ocean and being hit by a powerful wave.

(MORE: Typhoon Haishen Poses Threat to Parts of Southern Japan and South Korea)

Rescuers on Friday also found an unconscious man floating face down. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital, according to coast guard spokesoman Takahiro Yamada.

Dozens of cow carcasses were also spotted floating in the area.

The ship was en route from New Zealand to China.

Powerful Typhoon Maysak on Thursday killed two people, flooded homes and vehicles and knocked down trees and utility poles on South Korea’s southern and eastern coasts. At least three deaths are also being blamed on the storm.

In this image made from video released by the 10th Regional Japan Coast Guard Headquarters, a rescued crew member of a Panamanian cargo ship takes a bottle of water as he speaks to Japanese Coast Guard members off the Amami Oshima, Japan Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2020. Japanese rescuers have safely plucked the crew member from the sea while searching for the cargo ship carrying more than 40 crew and thousands of cows went missing after sending a distress call off the southern Japanese island.

Officials in Russia's Primorye region said two of nine crew members on board a floating crane were killed when the crane was beached, the Moscow Times reported. Another person was killed by a falling tree, officials told the newspaper.

At least two deaths are being blamed on the typhoon in South Korea, according to the Korea Herald. A woman in her 60s died in Busan after being injured by a shattered window, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters said. A man in his 50s, also in Busan, also died after being cut by broken windows, the headquarters said.

Maysak is the fourth typhoon to hit the Korean Peninsula this year and the second in less than a month. Last week, Typhoon Bavi damaged homes, buildings and crops on the peninsula.

Typhoon Haishen is expected to reach the Korean coast on Monday after passing near parts of southern Japan.

More than 2,400 South Koreans evacuated their homes as Maysak approached, the AP reported. On Thursday, the typhoon knocked out electricity to more than 270,000 homes, mostly in Busan and on the resort island of Jeju.

At least 17 homes were destroyed, the Korea Herald reported. More than 850 properties were damaged.

South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety said four nuclear power reactors near Busan automatically shut down because of electricity supply issues. No radioactive leaks were detected, the AP reported.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency showed flooding along the eastern coast but didn't report any casualties.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.