China launched an emergency rescue operation in the East China Sea to locate a Russian ship and its crew of 17 that failed to arrive at its destination last week, state press said Monday.
Search and rescue units have been launched to the waters east of Shanghai, while maritime satellite sweeps of the region are also seeking the missing vessel, Xinhua news agency said.
The ship departed from Hokkaido in Japan but failed to show up in Hong Kong on Thursday last week as scheduled, the report said, without saying when it left Japan.
The report did not say when radio contact with the ship last occurred, but confirmed it had heard from the vessel when it was 212 nautical miles (243 miles, 392 kilometres) east of Shanghai.
No other details of the missing ship, including its function, were reported.
