Bulgarian rescuers resumed on Monday search for crewmembers of the Tolstoy dry cargo ship that sank offshore Bulgaria in international waters of the Black Sea on Saturday, Itar-Tass reported.
The Tolstoy was carrying scrap metal from Rostov-on-Don to Turkey. It disappeared from radar screens at about 5:00 a.m. Moscow time on Saturday. The crew consisted of ten people – Russian captain Andrei Kulik and nine Ukrainians.
At 18:30 Moscow time on Sunday, the first good news came as the crew of a Belgian yacht spotted a life-raft with two sailors from the Tolstoy, who were taken aboard. Ukrainians Denis Akhrameyev and Andrei Krizhenovsky had spent 36 hours in water.
Search for the other victims of the shipwreck was resumed at dawn, but experts believe chances to find people alive were scarce.
The Bulgarian maritime administration identified the Tolstoy crewmembers as Captain Andrei Kulik (Russia), First Mate Igor Smolnik (Ukraine), Second Mate Sergei Zorya (Ukraine), Senior Mechanic Ivan Stenovysh (Ukraine), Mechanics Alexander Glamzhin and Ivan Padaruyev (Ukraine), Sailors Andrei Krizhenovsky, Alexander Drozdov and Denis Metryakhev (Ukraine) and Chef Kirill Khokhlov (Ukraine).
