Eight crewmembers of a sunken French trawler were feared dead off the west coast of Ireland Monday as a desperate air and sea search for the missing men resumed at dawn.
The chances of finding more survivors after the sinking of the An Orient in heavy seas on Sunday were "very, very slight," a coast guard spokesman told AFP.
The situation "is not good," he said.
A total of 11 sailors -- seven French, three Portuguese and one Irish -- were aboard when the trawler was submerged by a huge wave during a storm early Sunday.
Two Frenchmen and a Portuguese sailor, none of them wearing life vests, were plucked from a buoy in the water on Sunday before the suspension of search and rescue operations overnight.
An Irish rescue helicopter and a French search plane flew early Monday over the trawler's last known position about 140 kilometers (88 miles) west of Ireland, the coast guard spokesman said.
Four French trawlers also joined the search, he added.
Weather conditions were improving in the area but the sea was still strong with waves of five-to-six meters (17-to-20 feet), the coast guard said.
Before being taken to hospital suffering hypothermia, the survivors told coast guards that a fourth man who initially survived the shipwreck had later disappeared in the water -- DUBLIN (AFP)
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