The search for the Panama-flagged bulk carrier Ocean Winner entered its fourth day Monday and produced the finding rescuers dread most: an empty lifeboat, located adrift in the Bay of Bengal with no one alive beside it. [3] The ship went down Saturday roughly 240 nautical miles off Paradip, Odisha, carrying about 72,100 metric tons of iron ore fines bound for Singapore. [1]

Twenty-two of the twenty-four crew remain missing — twenty Chinese nationals, three from Myanmar, one Bangladeshi. The only survivors were rescued over the weekend after being pulled from liferafts by a commercial vessel. [1] [2] Indian Coast Guard patrol ships, joined by navy assets, continue sweeping a search box of gray water that grows less promising by the tide; authorities have kept open every cause from severe weather to mechanical failure, with no mayday explanation surfaced. [1]

Official releases stay inside the rescue frame, and the maritime-safety conversation does not. Iron ore fines are the cargo class that can liquefy inside a rolling hold and take a laden ship down in minutes — the industry's recurring silent killer, discussed openly everywhere except announcements still awaiting an inquiry. Seafarer-welfare accounts noted the crew's nationality mix, the voyage track from Paradip, and the question nobody official will name yet. [2] The sea gives up such answers slowly, and this one floated in empty.

-- LUCIA VEGA, São Paulo