Ship Safe

Further to reports that a Korean-owned container vessel may have been hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, officials in Seoul have reported that the 75,000-ton “Hanjin Tianjin” is safe and an investigation is now ongoing.

All the crew – made up of 14 Koreans and six Indonesians on board the container vessel are confirmed unharmed.

A Korean destroyer sent a Lynx helicopter to conduct a thorough inspection around the troubled vessel, which is enroute to Singapore from Spain.

It is understood that despite the distress, there have been no reported sightings of the pirates and the search operation inside the ship’s cargo is to continue for some time to figure out what exactly happened when it sent out a security alarm call just before communication was cut off at 5:15 a.m.

Officials add that the international combined fleet’s Turkish warship that reached the Panama-registered freighter some three hours after the alarm went off, had already informed Seoul there were no signs of the attackers.