Fire on fishingboat

I was alerted to a fire on board a fishing boat off the Chilean coast last night, as I was trawling a ship photos site. The boat, the Hercules, sailed from Panama on March 24th, and was located more than 300 miles offshore from the Chilean city of Ancud when a raging fire took hold and destroyed the ship.


Image courtesy portal.fo [Faeroese webportal]

I copy from the shipspotting website:
At 4 o'clock (british time) this morning fire broke out on giant trawler HERCULES imo 8907060.

4 ships took part in the rescue of the crew.
The ship is somewhere in the Pacific, probaly near Chile.
Hercules is under Faroese flag. Two week ago they started fishing for horse macerel.

She was built in 1991 and measures 5000 DWT.

One hour ago the owners Thor Fisheries explained in a press release that 1 member of the crew is dead and 10 are missing.
The crew was 116 men of different nationality Norwegian, Asian, Faroese and other.
The fire has spreed and the owners are facing "a total loss" of the ship.
The survivors are onboard sistership Poseidon.

Further updates from the BBC. I have supplied the above info to the BBC, as they did not have that as of 1pm today.