Crew of ill-fated MV Maersk Honam brought to Kochi

KOCHI: A merchant ship carrying the crew members and the body of a dead sailor belonging to the container ship MV Maersk Honam, which caught fire in Arabian Sea around 90 nautical miles off Thiruvananthapuram coast, arrived in Kochi at 2am on Friday.Of the 19 crew members, four were sent to a hospital in the city after they complained of body pain and breathing problems. They are: Abhishek Kumar Sharma from Telangana, Adam Nicholas Forster Harrison from the United Kingdom, Milroy Fernandez from Goa and Dan John Abellana Caballero from the Philippines The merchant ship, which was nearby the container ship which caught fire, had rescued the crewmembers and dropped three of them at Thiruvananthapuram as they were in a critical condition. Deepu Jayan from Thiruvananthapuram, Allan Ray Palka Gabulanis from the Philippines and Sukun Suvanna Peng from Thailand, who were admitted at the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital, were shifted to KIMS Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram. Hospital sources said that their conditions were stable.Meanwhile, of the 14 crewmembers who arrived in Kochi, one was from Kerala while the rest were from different parts of the world. They have cleared immigration procedures and have been put up in a hotel. All foreign nationals were issued a temporary landing permit by the bureau of immigration.Maersk Line said in a statement that search was on to locate the four crew members, who had gone missing but added that ‘hopes of finding them are fading’. An Indian was among them, sources said.