Search to continue for 13 people missing after Russian trawler's sinking

The efforts to search would continue Saturday for the 13 people who were missing after the fishing freezer trawler they boarded sank off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula Thursday morning, a local official said Friday.

The past days went by without positive news regarding searching effort, said RIA Novosti in a report quoting an official with the Far East division of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry as. According to him, 65 people aboard the trawler were identified.

The trawler, with 132 people on board, including 81 Russians and 51 foreigners, sank in freezing water of the Okhotsk Sea at 6: 15 a.m. local time Thursday. Rescue crew hoisted 119 people from the water, of whom, 56 were proclaimed dead. There were 13 people missing.

Sixty survivors, along with 56 dead bodies, were evacuated to the Korsakov port in Sakhalin region, while three fishermen in extremely serious condition were sent to the district hospital in Magadan city earlier Friday, according to a spokesman for the ministry's Kamchatka department.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.

An investigative department of the Far East said that the investigation results of possible safety rules violation will be announced in a week.

Owner of the trawler, Magellan LLC, planned to pay compensation to the families of the victims and promised to cover the cost of sending the bodies home.

Russian Defense Ministry earlier rejected media reports that the trawler collided with a Russian submarine, saying "no Russian Naval submarines were in that particular area of the Okhotsk Sea at the time of the tragedy."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Yury Trutnev, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District, to work with relevant departments and take charge of the treatment of the injured and other necessary assistance.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday sent a message of condolences to Putin over the sinking of the trawler. Endite