Five sailors injured, 10 missing

Ten US Navy sailors were missing and five were injured after the USS John S. McCain guided missile destroyer and an oil tanker more than three times its size collided near Singapore early Monday, The Washington Post reported.
American and Singaporean ships and helicopters launched a search-and-rescue mission after the pre-dawn collision at the entrance to one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
This was the second time in two months that a Navy destroyer based at the 7th Fleet’s home port of Yokosuka, Japan, has been involved in a collision at sea. Seven sailors were killed when the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship south of Japan in June.
The McCain, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer equipped with an Aegis system, had been on its way to a routine port visit in Singapore after patrolling in the South China Sea. Shipping data showed that the Liberian-flagged merchant vessel Alnic MC was also on its way to Singapore when the ships collided east of the Strait of Malacca at 5:24 a.m. local time, while it was still dark.
The 550-mile-long strait runs between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, connecting the Pacific and Indian oceans. It is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes but is well traversed and governed, analysts say.

Source: Mena