Tanker stops for emergency help

HONG KONG - Hong Kong doctors and paramedics boarded a chemical tanker yesterday after it made a distress stop in the territory when 10 of its 24 member-crew showed Sars-like symptoms.

Covered from head to toe in white protective gear, the medical staff got on to the Bunga Melawis Satu shortly after the Malaysia-flagged vessel dropped anchor off the territory.

Circling overhead against an overcast sky were a few rescue helicopters, which a Government spokeswoman said were on standby to airlift any of the sick to hospital if necessary.

"Three doctors have gone up to the tanker and are checking to see if the 10 crew may have Sars. We have a hospital on standby," said the Health Department spokeswoman.

"We don't know if any of them will be taken to hospital. The doctors are still checking to see if they have Sars."

The captain of the vessel, which was originally bound for the southern Chinese port of Guangzhou, made the emergency appeal to dock in Hong Kong after 10 crew members were found to be ill with fever, coughs and bodyaches, symptoms of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars). One is seriously sick.

Those who are believed to have Sars will be brought to a nearby hospital, and the rest would be quarantined for 10 days on the vessel, the Government said earlier.

A port source in Hong Kong said the vessel had been in Singapore and Malaysia just before it docked in Thailand. It left Thailand on April 28.

"It was going about its normal business while travelling from Singapore to Malaysia and to Thailand," said the port source.

"The crew appear to have fallen ill while at sea after leaving Thailand."

It is not known how or where the sick crew members, all of Indian origin, contracted their illnesses.

- REUTERS