India’s coastguard and navy launched a major search-and-rescue operation in the Bay of Bengal on Saturday (August 22) after a Panama-flagged bulk carrier sank off India’s eastern coast, with 22 of its 24 crew still missing, the South China Morning Post reported.
The vessel, MV Ocean Winner, had been carrying 72,100 tonnes of iron ore fines from Odisha’s Paradip port to Singapore when it went down roughly 240 nautical miles (445km) offshore, Reuters reported, citing the Indian Coast Guard. India’s Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Sri Vijaya Puram, formerly Port Blair, said it lost contact with the ship on Saturday, shortly before it sank.
The crew of 24 comprised 20 Chinese nationals, three from Myanmar and one Bangladeshi, Commandant Amit Uniyal, a coastguard spokesman, told the South China Morning Post. The ship’s operator, Victory Star Group, had alerted Indian authorities after losing touch with the vessel, whose Automatic Identification System transponder had stopped transmitting more than 24 hours earlier, according to maritime trackers, The Week reported.
Two crew members were pulled from liferafts on Saturday evening by the crude oil tanker MT Aisopos, which had been diverted from its route to Chittagong in Bangladesh to join the search. The Indian Navy said its P8I surveillance aircraft, redeployed after the initial distress alert, spotted a dispersed liferaft east of Visakhapatnam and coordinated the rescue with the merchant vessel.
“On 22 Aug 26, responding to the distress alert received in respect of MV Ocean Winner, approximately 700km east of Visakhapatnam, Indian Navy aircraft P8I on surveillance sortie was rapidly re-deployed for search and rescue mission in coordination with MRCC at Sri Vijaya Puram,” the Eastern Naval Command said in a statement.
The coastguard despatched three ships, Varad, Anmol and Vijit, to the site, with Vijit sailing from Sri Vijaya Puram to reinforce the operation, while the navy joined in with aircraft and additional vessels. Nearby merchant ships were also alerted and asked to assist in the search.
Captain Alekha Charan Sahoo, deputy conservator of the Paradip Port Authority, said he was praying for the safety of the crew and hoping for the best. The ship’s ownership could not immediately be independently established, and the cause of the sinking remains unknown, with officials yet to confirm whether bad weather, mechanical failure or another factor was to blame.
Built in 1998, the 225-metre Panamax bulk carrier had departed from Paradip late on August 20, government sources told Reuters. Authorities said they were also coordinating with Panama, the ship’s flag state, and with the home countries of the crew on consular matters as the search for survivors continued. Officials said the coastguard and navy would continue aerial and surface searches through the coming days while the investigation into the cause of the sinking gets under way.
The sinking is the latest in a string of maritime accidents in waters around India this year, underscoring the risks faced by bulk carriers plying the busy shipping lanes of the Bay of Bengal. Officials said the coastguard and navy would continue aerial and surface searches through the coming days while the investigation into the cause of the sinking gets under way.
In May 2025, the Liberian-flagged container ship MSC Elsa 3 sank off the coast of Kerala with hazardous cargo, including calcium carbide and roughly 370 tonnes of fuel and oil, aboard; all 24 crew were rescued, but the incident forced Kerala to declare a high alert and triggered a weeks-long clean-up as authorities worked to contain an oil spill.
That same month, the Indian Coast Guard rescued six crew members of the cargo vessel MSV Salamath after it began flooding and sank off Mangaluru in Karnataka.
In August 2024, eleven crew were pulled from the sinking general cargo vessel MV ITT Puma near Sagar Island in West Bengal during a night-time operation involving Coast Guard ships and a Dornier aircraft. Further west, the Coast Guard has repeatedly coordinated with Pakistan’s Maritime Security Agency to rescue Indian sailors from sunken dhows in the north Arabian Sea, including nine crew from the MSV Taj Dhare Haram in December 2024.
