Ten sailors are missing and five have been injured after a US destroyer collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore, the US Navy says.
The guided missile destroyer USS John S McCain was sailing east of Singapore and preparing to stop in the port when it struck the Liberian-flagged vessel.
A wide-ranging search and rescue operation is under way.
It is the second serious collision involving a US Navy ship in recent months.
The collision was reported before dawn at 05:24 local time on Monday (21:24 GMT on Sunday) and took place in the Strait of Singapore, as the USS John S McCain prepared to perform a routine port stop in Singapore.
Singapore and US authorities said the destroyer sustained damage to her port side, which is the left-hand side of the vessel facing forward.
The chief of the Malaysian navy, Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badaruddin, has tweeted a picture appearing to show the US vessel with a hole at the rear.
The tanker it collided with, Alnic MC, sustained damage to a tank near the front of the ship 7m (23ft) above the waterline, but none of its crew were injured and there were no oil spills.
The tanker has a tonnage of 30,000 which is about three times that of the USS John S McCain’s, and at 600ft (182m) it is slightly longer than the 505ft-long US destroyer.
US military helicopters as well as the Singaporean and Malaysian navies and coast guards are currently conducting search and rescue operations.
The US Navy said four of the injured sailors had non-life threatening injuries and were medically evacuated to a Singapore hospital. The fifth person did not require further medical attention.
The ship is now sailing under its own power and heading to Singapore’s Changi naval base. The Alnic MC is making its way to Singapore’s port.
One crew member of the oil tanker told Reuters over the phone that the vessel sustained some damage to a valve. The ship was carrying nearly 12,000 tonnes of oil from Taiwan to Singapore, the news agency reported.
Shortly after news of the collision came out, the US chief of naval operations, John Richardson, tweeted that the first priority was to determine the safety of the ship and the crew.
US senator John McCain tweeted that he and his wife were praying for the sailors. The ship is named after his father and grandfather, both of whom served in the US Navy.
US president Donald Trump has also put out a tweet about the accident.
This is thought to be the fourth time in a year that a US navy vessel has been involved in an accident.
Just two months ago, seven US sailors were killed when the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship in Japanese waters near the port city of Yokosuka.
Those who died were found in flooded berths on board the ship after the collision caused a gash under the warship’s waterline.
The US Navy said last week that about a dozen sailors would be disciplined, and the commanding officer and other senior crew would be taken off the ship.
In May, a guided missile cruiser collided with a South Korean fishing vessel, while in August last year a submarine collided with an offshore support vessel.-BBC
