Salvage work is to start Monday afternoon to recover the
15,000-tonnage dredger that sank early this month in the Huangpu
River, which runs through China's largest economic hub Shanghai.
Shanghai Salvage Bureau under the Ministry of Communications will
take on the work, which will be completed in more than one month,
sources with the bureau said.
The vessel was conducting dredging near the Napu Bridge over the
river when the accident occurred at 1:05 PM on Dec. 2.
The ship leaned over suddenly during work and submerged within
two hours, said the sources, adding that crew and workers on the
ship escaped before sinking. No casualties were reported.
The dredger, transformed from a roll-on-roll-off vessel, was
146.5 meters long and 22.6 meters wide. The whole body of the ship
were submerged, with only part of its control cabin sticking out of
the water.
Divers from the salvage bureau said there were a large amount of
scrapped steel bricks and wires around the sunk vessel, and that
the ship has sunk two meters into the silt. All this made salvage
work more difficult, they added.
(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2006)