At 5:05 a.m. on May 2, 1993, the "Xiangyanghong 16" marine science research vessel belonging to the State Oceanic Administration of China was sailing toward the set target waters under the fog in the East China Sea. It was still early, and many of the people on board were still asleep.
Suddenly, accompanied by a thunderous sound, the entire hull of the ship appeared a violent vibration, and everyone was awakened by this huge movement!
And Venus, a researcher who was resting in room 222 at the time, saw something pressing towards him at this moment!
He was still a little sleepy, but he immediately woke up. Venus held up her hands against the top and shouted at the same time:
What's going on?! What happened?! Wake up, everyone! Wake up!
Zheng Tao, a colleague who lived in the lower bunk, reacted and immediately dragged Venus down from the upper bunk.
Zheng Tao then tried to wake up the other two roommates Yu Haiyang and Meng Lingwei, but the whole room was completely squeezed and deformed, where there was still their shadow.
In desperation, the two terrified people had to squeeze out of a gap first.
But what the two did not expect was that their roommate, whose life and death were uncertain, would soon sink into the cold sea with the whole ship...
On April 30, China's marine researchers from Beijing, Hangzhou, Xiamen and other places successively boarded Xiangyanghong No. 16, which was moored in the port of Shanghai, and prepared to go to the waters near Hawaii in the central Pacific Ocean to carry out the task of exploring the polymetallic nodule resources on the seabed.
Unexpectedly, the sky was not beautiful, and on this day there was a heavy fog on the sea, the visibility was not good, and the original sailing time had to be postponed to the next day.
Everyone did not waste this day's time, but took this opportunity to conduct a sea distress escape drill to simulate the scene of everyone escaping in a lifeboat after the accident of Xiangyanghong 16.
By the next day, May Day, the weather was still not very good, but it seemed to have met the conditions for sailing.
So with the sound of the whistle, Xiangyanghong 16 left the port of Shanghai and sailed into the depths of the vast Pacific Ocean, starting its sixth, but final, ocean voyage in more than a decade.
Schematic diagram of the Ocean Survey Oath Ceremony
At about 4:00 a.m. on May 2, Jin Mingqi, the captain of Xiangyanghong 16, got up early and rushed to the cab to take over the shift of the duty officer and prepare to start the day's work.
The 46-year-old Jin Mingqi has been working at sea for nearly three decades and has a very rich experience in going to sea.
At the same time, he was also very familiar with the Xiangyanghong 16, because Since the launch of the ship, Jin Mingqi had been its captain for eleven years, and he knew everything on the ship.
At this time, the sea began to fog again, the visibility was only twenty or thirty meters, and the stern could not be seen at the bow of the ship.
But Jin Mingqi was not nervous about this, after all, people who live at sea all year round have long been accustomed to all kinds of wind and waves, and as long as they are cautious in foggy weather like this, there will be no major trouble. As long as the sun is fully raised, the sea fog will clear.
So Xiangyanghong 16 reduced its speed and continued to sail forward in the sea fog (Note: there are more fishing boats nearby, and it is said that some managers felt that it was a hindrance to turn off the radar at this time).
Schematic diagram of ocean expeditions
However, at about 5 o'clock, a huge black shadow like a mountain suddenly appeared from the thick fog, and rushed straight towards the right side of Xiangyanghong No. 16!
Kim Myung-chi immediately ordered a turn of the rudder and other corresponding emergency avoidance measures, but because the two sides were too close, these practices had no effect, and the black shadow was like a brainless wild bull, completely unaware of other ships nearby.
At about 5:05, a terrible collision occurred!
This black shadow is a Cypriot-flagged ship "Silver Horn" with a displacement of about 40,000 tons (note: Cyprus is a small Mediterranean country), which was carrying liquefied natural gas at that time, while China's Xiangyanghong 16 was a scientific research vessel with a tonnage of only about 4,400 tons.
The difference between the two tonnage is about nine times, and the consequences of the collision can be imagined.
The huge ball nose of the Silver Horn cargo ship slammed into the cabin of Xiangyanghong 16, and our ship was like a weak sheep, which was instantly disemboweled by this sword.
With the sound of landslides, the steel plate of the Xiangyanghong 16 hull broke, and the main engine of the ship immediately exploded, and various bottles and cans in the cabin also suffered.
Then the sea rushed in, and in just one minute, the water in the cabin was close to two meters.
But something even more terrible happened near the inhabited cabin.
The center of the Silver Horn's impact was located in Room 222, where 4 Chinese researchers lived, and the broken hull steel plate and the collapsed decorative roof plate made the house instantly squeezed and deformed.
Jin Xing and Zheng Tao luckily escaped from the disaster, but Yu Haiyang and Meng Lingwei were missing and their fate was uncertain.
Wang Longquan, the translator who lived in the room near No. 222, reacted exceptionally quickly and suddenly woke up and ran out at the time of the impact, so although the room was completely damaged, he himself was unharmed.
Mei Qiufang and Liu Shiming, who were near the same impact site, did not have such good luck.
Mei Qiufang's room was squeezed to only a small corner, he himself failed to escape at the first time, not only his legs were fractured, but also many injuries on his body, and all kinds of dumped debris were pressed on it, Mei Qiufang could only watch the sea continue to pour in, and Liu Shiming was as uncertain as the ocean and Meng Lingwei.
Schematic diagram of the marine research vessel
At 5:08, three minutes after the impact, Xiangyanghong 16 sent a distress signal to the outside world. As the most recent rescue force and one of the parties involved, the Silver Horn actually began to overturn at this time!
As a consequence of this, the sea water rushed into Xiangyanghong 16 faster!
Silver Horn had its own reasons for this, as the LNG carried on board would not allow it to stay nearby, but in any case, such an approach would not be a good thing for Xiangyanghong 16. Its hull began to tilt rapidly, and the sinking trend accelerated significantly.
As the captain of the ship, Jin Mingqi, despite all his reluctance, finally gave the order to abandon the ship: abandon the ship! Everyone put on their life jackets and get ready to board the lifeboat!
Just the day before the voyage, everyone also carried out an escape drill, but no one expected to put it into practice so soon.
However, the drill is a drill after all, the real accident is obviously much worse, the ship is sinking rapidly, every second is very precious, but 2 of the 4 lifeboats equipped with it were scrapped when they crashed.
The crowd called for the Silver Horn to let the lifeboat down, but the Silver Horn, which was parked at least 300 meters away, ignored it.
This meant that the more than 100 people on board could only squeeze into the remaining 2 lifeboats and a few other life rafts. Captain Jin Mingqi once again ordered: the elderly and infirm and scientists should first get into the lifeboat!
Xiangyanghong 16 sank
Despite the critical situation, there was no panic in the order, and the crowd boarded the lifeboat nervously and orderly under the arrangement of the captain, the commander-in-chief of the inspection and others.
As the lifeboat draught deeper and deeper, there were fewer and fewer people aboard the soon-to-be-sunk Xiangyanghong 16.
Those who escaped abandoned their personal belongings, carrying only valuable public goods that they could take with them. This was a helpless move to minimize the loss, after all, this was the most advanced marine research vessel in China at that time, and many of the equipment on it were destined to be impossible to take away.
After making sure that most of the people who escaped boarded the lifeboat, Captain Jin Mingqi and the others left the sunken Xiangyanghong 16.
As soon as he boarded the lifeboat, the man who had been fighting the wind and waves at sea for nearly thirty years burst into tears, and many people around him could not help but secretly shed tears.
However, everyone has not forgotten that at this moment, it is necessary to keep the lifeboat away from the shipwreck, otherwise it may be sucked into the whirlpool. Some of the people on the lifeboat used oars, some used their hands, and some used wooden planks to row desperately.
At this time, the Silver Horn, which had been parked in the distance, saw that the Xiangyanghong 16 was about to completely sink, so it gradually leaned over and allowed the Chinese to board the ship for refuge.
However, unexpected things happened again, and the people on the lifeboat suddenly found that there was a person floating next to the Xiangyanghong! This person is no one else, it is Mei Qiufang, who was trapped in the room we mentioned earlier.
It turned out that after the sea poured in, many things floated up, and Mei Qiufang took this opportunity to drill out of the hole that had been broken.
Seeing that there were still survivors, one of the lifeboats turned back to rescue them despite the danger of being sucked into the wreck, and then immediately left the danger zone.
It was this effort, Xiangyanghong 16 was completely submerged into the sea, and the sinking hull formed a huge whirlpool on the surface of the sea.
China's first-class scientific research vessel of that year, Xiangyanghong 16, worth nearly 100 million yuan, thus ended its last voyage.
Also sinking were 39-year-old Liu Shiming, 30-year-old Meng Lingwei, and Yu Haiyang, who was also 30 years old but had only recently married.
German-Italian
At about 7 o'clock on May 2, all 107 of our surviving crew members boarded the Silver Horn and reported this painful news to the relevant domestic authorities.
After searching the crashed waters for two hours, the Silver Horn continued its scheduled voyage. Later, a ship in our country called the "Deyi" came and took all the crew.
A few days later, the German-Italian returned to Shanghai, and the survivors who had experienced life and death also set foot on land again, and unlike the elation before the departure, everyone was silent.
At the subsequent condolence meeting, many people cried bitterly. These tears are for the lost scientific research efforts, for colleagues whose whereabouts are unknown, and for the Sunshine Red 16 that sank to the bottom of the sea.
Content Source:
Zheng Xian: "Before the Silence - Xiang Yanghong No. 16 Killed and Saved Himself"
Sun Bin: A Ship That Always Floats in Memory: An Interview Afterword to the Sinking of Xiangyanghong 16