French divers have recovered the bodies of three crewmen who were aboard a freighter that sank off Newfoundland earlier this month, officials said Tuesday.
Jean Pierre Bercot, the prefect of the tiny St-Pierre-Miquelon islands, a French territory in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, said divers searched the wreck of the Cap Blanc and found three of the four men who went down with the ship.
The French freighter, loaded with road salt from Argentia, Newfoundland, capsized Dec. 2 en route to its home port in the French territory, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Newfoundland's south coast.
Bruno Arantzabe, an official at the St-Pierre Port Authority, said the 121-foot-long (37-meter) vessel sank in about 425 feet (130 meters) of water after capsizing south of Marystown, Newfoundland.
Mike Bonin, a search-and-rescue spokesman, did not comment on what caused the vessel to capsize, but said winds in the area were about 30 miles (50 kilometers) per hour around the time of the sinking.
Bercot said the vessel was 134 meters (440 feet) from the surface and that divers searched all of it, but didn't find the fourth man.
The ship, owned by Alliances SP, was a small general cargo vessel that made regular runs between Newfoundland and the St-Pierre-Miquelon islands.
Bercot would not say when the recovery took place, saying only that funerals were being held for the men on Thursday.
