Search Continues for 22 Missing Crew After Cargo Ship Sinks Off Eastern India

A multi-ship search and rescue operation was underway on Sunday off the eastern coast of India after a Panama-flagged cargo vessel sank with 24 crew members on board. The ship, named the Ocean Winner, went down on Friday in waters deep within the Bay of Bengal, leaving the vast majority of its crew unaccounted for.

According to statements from the Indian Coast Guard, two Chinese nationals were successfully rescued from the water on Saturday. However, 22 other crew members remain missing. The personnel still unaccounted for include 18 Chinese citizens, three nationals of Myanmar, and one Bangladeshi national, reflecting a multinational crew serving on board the merchant vessel.

The two surviving seafarers provided critical details regarding the swift catastrophe that befell the vessel. Shyam Jagannathan, director general of India’s Maritime Administration, reported that the rescued crew members stated the cargo ship developed a severe list—a technical maritime term referring to an uncontrolled tilt to one side—on Friday afternoon before sinking completely within eight minutes.

The sudden timeline forced the crew to abandon ship with minimal preparation. The underlying cause for the ship’s rapid loss of stability and subsequent sinking was not immediately known, and official investigations into the cause of the maritime disaster have yet to yield definitive findings.

Jagannathan cautioned that the probability of locating additional survivors falls sharply after 12 hours in open water, given the environmental hazards and ocean exposure. Despite the diminishing chances, Indian maritime authorities confirmed that rescue teams were continuing their search operations in hope of finding additional crew members.

In a statement published on social media platform X, the Indian Coast Guard confirmed that three of its vessels had been deployed directly to the area to execute surface searches across the water. The search operation is centered approximately 240 nautical miles (444 kilometers, or 276 miles) off the coast of the Indian state of Odisha, according to government officials cited in local media reports.

Information from the commercial ship-tracking service MarineTraffic showed that the Ocean Winner had loaded a cargo of iron ore at the port of Paradip, located in Odisha, and was in transit to Singapore when the disaster occurred. The port of Paradip serves as a major industrial maritime hub on India’s eastern seaboard, regularly handling bulk mineral shipments bound for destinations across Southeast Asia and beyond.

Background

The Bay of Bengal is a crucial maritime transit area connecting South Asian ports with international trade lanes in Southeast Asia. Paradip, situated on the coastline of Odisha state, is one of India’s largest bulk cargo hubs, frequently handling exports of raw minerals such as iron ore and coal.

Bulk carriers carrying dense cargoes like iron ore operate under strict stability parameters. Developing a list—an involuntary tilt to port or starboard—often signals compromised hull integrity, shifted cargo, or water ingress, all of which can severely diminish a vessel’s buoyancy within minutes.