A Spanish fishing boat carrying 24 people sank early Tuesday hundreds of miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, leaving at least 10 people dead and more than a dozen missing, according to Canadian and Spanish maritime officials.
Three people were rescued by another fishing boat that was nearby when the 164-foot vessel, called the Villa de Pitanxo, sank, Spain’s maritime rescue service said in a statement.
The survivors had made it into a life raft, which also held the bodies of four members of the crew. The bodies of three other crew members were later found in the water, said Lt. Cmdr. Brian Owens, a spokesman at the Joint Task Force Atlantic and Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia. An additional three bodies were found later in the day, according to Spanish maritime officials.
The boat had been based in the Galician town of Marín, in northwestern Spain. María Ramallo, the mayor, told reporters that the sinking was “a tragedy on a scale that we cannot remember.”
Search and rescue crews had encountered rough water, reduced visibility and windy conditions at sea, Spanish officials said.
The boat was carrying 16 Spaniards, five Peruvians and three Ghanaians, according to the rescue service. The boat sank about 280 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Spanish officials said on Twitter.
Two helicopters, a plane, and Spanish and Portuguese fishing boats were involved in the search, officials said.
The Halifax rescue center said it received an emergency signal just after midnight on Tuesday from the Villa de Pitanxo. The signal indicated the boat was east of St. John’s, the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador. A helicopter, another aircraft and several vessels were deployed.
Commander Owens said rescuers remained hopeful that they could still find crew members alive. They may have managed to put on survival suits before the ship sank or found debris or a lifeboat to cling to, he said.
“We never rule out the human spirit,” he said. “People find ways to survive.”
The fishing boat itself has not been found, he said.
“The North Atlantic is formidable, especially in the winter,” said Fred Anstey, the head of the School of Maritime Studies at the Marine Institute at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Many other vessels, including fishing boats, have been lost over the years, he said.
One of the biggest disasters at sea occurred in 1982, when the Ocean Ranger, a drilling rig on the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland, capsized after it was pounded by 65-foot waves. Eighty-four people were killed, Mr. Anstey said.
The high winds and rough seas described by rescuers on Tuesday are “very common weather for this time of year,” Mr. Anstey said.
Sea temperatures are usually around the freezing mark, Mr. Anstey said. Factoring in the wind conditions, he said, survival time “is often measured in minutes.”
In Spain, officials and relatives of the crew members were anxious for more updates about the rescue efforts.
“We remain distressed by the terrible news out of Canada about the sinking of the Villa de Pitanxo,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the regional president of Galicia, said on Twitter. “We are making available to the government and the shipowner all the help they need.”
Maica Larriba, a local official in Galicia, said on Tuesday that contact with the vessel was lost around 5 a.m. in Spain.
In a separate news conference, Isabel Rodríguez García, the minister for territorial policy and the spokeswoman of the Spanish government, confirmed the rescue of three crew members, but said she could not comment further.
“We are following with worry and preoccupation the rescue operations,” she said.
The boat was built in 2004, according to Vesselfinder, a website for tracking marine traffic.
The ship’s owner is a fishing company, Grupo Nores, that specializes in fishing cod, dog fish and other species found in the North Atlantic, according to Spanish media reports.
Elisabeth Calderón, the aunt of one of the sailors, Jonathan Calderón, told local reporters that his ship had been at sea for over a month. Mr. Calderón has a wife and two adolescent children, his aunt said.
His wife was traveling when the shipwreck occurred, she said.
“Imagine when the family found out,” Ms. Calderón said.
Carlos Ordóñez, a sailor whose nephew was on board the ship, said the family was “completely overwhelmed.”
“We don’t know if they are alive or dead,” he said.
Jesus Jiménez contributed reporting.