Baltic Ace: photo - PAP/EPA/HANS BLOMVLIET/SCHEEPVAARTNIEUWS.BLOGSPOT.COM
"Two Poles have died and three are missing," Janusz Wołosz, a spokesman at the Polish Embassy in the Hague has told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
"Of the four bodies recovered by the emergency services, two were identified as Polish nationals,” he added.
Eleven Polish crew members were onboard the vessel which sunk into icy waters on Wednesday night, around 100 kilometers from Rotterdam.
Apart from Poles, the crew was made up of Bulgarians, Ukrainians and Filipinos, the Dutch Het Parool newspaper is reporting.
Thirteen of the 24 on board have been rescued and are being treated for hypothermia, but four deaths have been confirmed.
The injured have been transported to hospitals in Rotterdam and Ostend in Belgium.. One remained on the rescue ship.
"I have talked to the victims [at the Ostend hospital]. Physically, they are in good condition, but there is still a question as to their psychological state," Pia Libicka from the Polish Consulate in Belgium has said.
She added that if doctors agree, the three Poles will be able to be transported back to their employment agency in Rotterdam, where the crew was put together.
"The captain [of the vessel] is in intensive care unit, but doctors assured me that his condition is stable,” she added.
The Baltic Ace, which was transporting a shipment of cars, had left the Belgian port of Zeebrugge and was bound for Kotka in Finland.
At about 7 pm on Wednesday night, it collided with container ship Corvus J in a shipping lane about 30 miles from Rotterdam.
Rescue operation in high winds
“Families are being kept informed on the rescue operation,” says Janusz Łęgowski of the Gdynia Maritime Agency, which employed 10 of the 11 Poles working on the Baltic Ace.
The Baltic Ace went down in 15 minutes, but 13 crew-members managed to clamber onto four life rafts.
One Bulgarian sailor was rescued late Wednesday evening, Martime.bg reports.
A pair of helicopters flew to the scene, backed up by two life boats.
According to rescuers, the chances of finding any more people alive in the freezing waters of the North Sea are slim.
The rescue action had to be abandoned at 2 am this morning due to severe weather conditions, with strong winds blowing waves 3.5 meters high, but was resumed again this morning.
The cause of the accident is currently unknown.
"There has been a disaster at sea, a collision of two ships. But what the cause was and who is to blame, I am not able to say" said the spokesman at the Polish Embassy in The Hague.
The Baltic Ace was flying under the flag of the Bahamas, and had been leased by the Gdynia Maritime Agency, based in Gdynia, northern Poland.
Shipping traffic has not been disrupted but it was unclear whether there was any risk of fuel leaks from the sunken cargo ship.
Operations at Rotterdam Port were not affected by the collision, a port spokesman said late on Wednesday, Reuters reports. (pg)