SIX members of the crew of a cargo vessel that sank after a collision in the Singapore Strait before Christmas are now feared drowned, after one body was washed ashore and identified, the Mission to Seafarers has confirmed.

Six further crewmen from the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged freighter MV Thorco Cloud were rescued. The collision left the other vessel involved with only minor damage.

The port chaplain for the Mission to Seafarers in Jurong Port, the Revd Peter Manimathu, said: “I met the surviving crew with the captain, who are all very distraught. They told me that they had survived by staying afloat with life jackets, but that they all thought they were going to die.

“As they had lost all their personal belongings, I provided them with clothes [and] a phone so that they could call their anxious families; and prayed with them. The Mission to Seafarers in Singapore will do everything in our capacity to support them, and will continue to visit them and provide care over the coming weeks.”

The charity’s regional director for East Asia, Canon Stephen Miller, said that the families of the missing crewmen had also been contacted and offered support.