As their ship started sinking rapidly into the sea, nine crew members onboard a cargo ship in Taiwan realised they did not have enough time to reach their life raft.
They decided to jump off the boat into sea, holding on to each other in groups.
On Thursday afternoon, Taiwan’s coast guard announced that one of the groups – made up of four Myanmar nationals – had been found. The captain of the ship was later on Friday found dead and four others are still missing.
They had all been working on the Tanzania-flagged Fu Shun, which capsized after Typhoon Gaemi made landfall on the island.
The vessel capsized at about 05:45 local time on Thursday (21:45 GMT Wednesday).
The nine Myanmar nationals said they decided to separate into two groups – one of five, and another of four.
All of them were wearing life jackets, but the survivors said they had watched as three of their colleagues in the other group, had their jackets swept away by high waves.
Search and rescue personnel said they had later found the body of the ship’s captain at about 06:55 on Friday. The other four in his group are still missing.
Locals found two of the survivors swept up on a beach in Kaohsiung at about 16:00 and brought them to a police station, while the Taiwanese Coast Guard rescued the other two at another part of the city’s coast later in the evening.
One of the survivors said he had swum backwards to retrieve a waist bag containing his passport, before swimming “with all his life” to reach the shore.
Another burst out crying after calling his family – he later told the coast guard that his wife and mother had thought he was dead after reading the news on Thursday.
Officials had earlier said the high waves and rough waters were hampering rescue efforts.
Photographs shared by the coast guard show the survivors clad in ponchos and towels for warmth, while coast guard staff tend to injuries on their arms and legs.
Eight other cargo ships carrying 79 crew members are still stranded in the stormy waters. The crew are safe, said Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council, adding that it is making effort to prevent potential oil spills.
Gaemi was downgraded to a tropical storm on Thursday evening, after leaving a trail of destruction in Taiwan and the Philippines and killing at least 21 people.
The storm made its second landfall in China’s southeastern Fujian province on Thursday evening.
Nearly 300,000 people have been evacuated and public transport suspended across eastern China on Friday.
