Sunken Cement Carrier Located North of Scotland

A photo of the upturned hull of the MV Cemfjord taken from a Wick RNLI lifeboat. Photo courtesy RNLI

Searchers have located the sunken hull of the cement carrier MV Cemfjord which sank over the weekend off the north coast of Scotland with the loss of all eight crew.

The wreck of the Cemfjord was found using sonar lying on the seabed in the eastern approaches to the Pentland Firth by the lighthouse tender, Pharos, BBC reports.

The upturned hull of the Cyprus-flagged vessel was spotted Saturday afternoon, January 3, by passengers of the ferry Hrossey and the ship later sank.

Despite an exhaustive search of the area, there has been no sign of the missing crew and the search for the missing was suspended Sunday night. An empty liferaft believed to be from the vessel was located on Monday however there were no signs that it had been used.

Contact was last made with a vessel on Friday afternoon at approximately 1:00 p.m. There was no mayday call or any indication that the ship may have been in trouble after that.

The crew comprised of seven Polish and one Filipino.

The ship was reportedly carrying 2,000 tonnes of cement when it capsized and was sailing from Aalborg Denmark to Runcorn, Cheshire in western England.

The accident is under investigation by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch.

The Pentland Firth separates the Orkney Islands from Caithness in the north of Scotland.