The search for survivors from a Spanish fishing trawler that sank off Canada’s eastern coast on Monday has ended, rescuers say.
Three members of the crew were rescued but nine are confirmed dead and 12 are still missing.
The crew included 16 Spaniards, five Peruvians and three Ghanaians.
The trawler, based in Spain’s north-west region of Galicia, sank off Newfoundland, in Spain’s worst fishing tragedy for almost 40 years.
It is as yet unclear what caused it to sink.
“The active search for the missing crew has been ended. The case is now turned over to law enforcement as a missing persons at sea case,” Brian Owens of Canada’s Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre told the BBC.
In Madrid, parliament observed a minute of silence.
The Agriculture and Fisheries Minister, Luis Planas, said it was the biggest tragedy in the fishing industry since Islamar III, a sardine boat, sank off the Canary Islands in 1984, claiming 26 lives.
IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERSLuzmar, a mother-of-four whose 29-year-old husband Edwin Cordoba is among the missing, said their children have been asking when their father is coming home. She and her husband are both from Peru.
“I am devastated, I can’t bear it,” she told reporters, according to the AFP news agency.
“In front of them, I can’t show how I am really feeling because they don’t know yet,” she added before breaking down in tears.
Two distress alerts were received from the ship more than 450km (279 miles) from land, according to Spanish sea search and rescue agency Salvamento Marítimo.
The trawler, registered in 2004, was based in the port of Marin
