The 32-strong crew of the tanker are missing and a tanker carrying $60m of oil is on fire.
Thirty-two people are missing after an oil tanker and a cargo ship collided off China’s east coast.
The Sanchi tanker, carrying 136,000 tonnes of Iranian oil worth $60m (£44m), caught fire after the crash.
China’s ministry of transport said the crew — 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis — were missing from the Panama-registered vessel.
The 21-strong crew of the cargo ship had been rescued. «Sanchi is floating and burning,» the ministry said.
«There is an oil slick and we are pushing forward with rescue efforts.»
Poor weather and huge plumes of smoke rising from the tanker are making rescue attempts difficult, Mohammad Rastad, head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organisation, told Iranian television.
It is the first major accident involving an Iranian oil tanker since international sanctions limiting its export were lifted in January 2016.
