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An Iranian oil tanker that has been ablaze for almost a week after colliding with another vessel in the East China Sea has finally sunk, Chinese state media reports.
The stricken tanker, Sanchi, had drifted into Japan's exclusive economic zone and "suddenly ignited", reports said.
Footage aired on China Central Television, filmed off a screen in the Shanghai Maritime Search and Rescue Centre, showed flames off the burning ship rising between 800 and 1,000 metres.
China's State Oceanic Administration said because the hull of the ship had detonated, a large amount of oil in surrounding waters was on fire, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The administration said it would expand the scope of its monitoring and "quickly ascertain the spread and drift of overflowing oil" from the wrecked ship.
The Sanchi, owned by National Iranian Tanker Co, was carrying almost 1 million barrels of condensate, an ultra-light crude oil, to South Korea.
It collided with the CF Crystal, which was carrying grain from the United States, about 184 kilometres off China's coast near Shanghai.
The Iranian ship had 32 mariners on board.
On Saturday rescuers recovered the bodies of two crew members, found on the lifeboat deck of the Sanchi oil tanker.
Another body was found in the sea earlier last week. The cause of the collision remains unclear and 29 crew members are still unaccounted for.
The crew was all Iranian expect for two Bangladeshis.
"There is no hope of finding survivors among the [missing] 29 members of the crew," Iran's maritime agency chief Mahmoud Rastad said on state television.
The Chinese freighter had 21 crew members, all of whom were reported safe.
Topics: trade, maritime, disasters-and-accidents, oil-and-gas, china, iran-islamic-republic-of
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