A South Korean-owned container ship may have been hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, officials in Seoul said Thursday, adding they have sent a warship to the area.
Hanjin Shipping Co. Ltd. lost contact with the 75,000-ton Hanjin Tianjin around 5 a.m Thursday (2000 GMT Wednesday) and it is suspected to have been hijacked, said Cho Byung-jae, a spokesman for South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
He said an emergency response team had been formed to deal with the incident and that the Choi Young, a 4,400 ton helicopter-carrying warship with a crew of 200, had been deployed to help in a possible rescue attempt.
The Hanjin Tianjin had a crew of 14 South Koreans and six Indonesians, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported. It said the ship transmitted a distress call in pirate-infested waters about 250 miles (400 kilometers) east of Yemen's Socotra island just before contact was lost.
The company did not respond to repeated calls for comment.