SINKING FREIGHTER REACHES HARBOUR

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5319, 4 February 1947, Page 5

SINKING FREIGHTER REACHES HARBOUR

( Press Assn.-

GALE PREVENTS RESCUE nearly 200 on board in perilous plight '

-Rec. 9.S0 p.m.)

LONDON, Feb. 3. Seattle coastguards are. trying to resciie 99 passengers and 100 members of the cre'w of the freighter Alaska, of 4514 tons, which is reported to be in a siriking condition in an unsheltered harbour at Cordover, Alaska. Rescue operations are expected to be hazardous becanse of the 40-mile-an-hour northerly gale sweeping clown on Cordover Channel. The Alaska, with its hull gashed when it ran aground five miles south oi' Coi'dover early yesterday morning, was towed off the rocks and reached Cordover Harbour under its own power. The coastguard eutter,

Wachusett is proceeding to the scene in an attempt to remove the passengers and crew in small boats. Captain Roy Selig, master of the Alaska, radioed the Seattle coastguai'd headquarters that the pumps were keeping the water at a six-foot level in No. 2 hold, but were unable to cope with the steadily rising water in the forward hold. Captain Selig later radioed that the water in No. 2 hold had risen another two feet in two hours and only one bulkhead was keeping the ship afloat. Samwater Driven Ashore Llcyds report that the burning steamer Samwater, which was abandoned off Cape Finsterre with the loss of 20 lives, has been driven ashore on Cie.s Island, near Vigo, by ?. south-westerly storm. Only the i'ore part of Ihe ship remains above water. The Samwater, of 7219 tons, was bound for Antwerp and Liverpool from Fremantle when ahandoned. The entire crew of 35 was rescued from the 4700-ton Irish steamer, Irish Plane, after she ran aground on Saturday night on the rocky coast near Ballyeottin, County Cork, during the worst storm in living memory. The crew was rescued by breeches buoy, worked from the cliff top. The Irish Plane was steaming from Dublin to Cork with a cargo .of motor cars and trucks and is not likely to he refloated.