At least three Bulgarian sailors died and eight other are missing and feared dead after a cargo ship was sunk by a heavy storm in the Sea of Azov according to Thursday reports of officials in Sofia and Kiev.

One crew member was salvaged by the rescue team from the freezing water and rushed to a Russian hospital, Bulgarian Transport Minister Petar Mutafchiev said.

The other members of the crew, who were trying to pilot the vessel through the Kerch Strait, were missing, Mutafchiev said. He added that Bulgaria wanted to join the probe into the accident and that the main factor causing the accident was overloading.
According to official reports, the missing crew members may have put on their thermal suits, but it is not certain how long they could survive in the water that was just a few degrees above freezing

Vanessa (the ship), belonging to the Board Marine Burgas Company, sank early in the morning after listing in the northern end of the Kerch Strait, some 30 miles (20 kilometers) from shore. Vanessa had left the Ukrainian port Berdyansk for Varna, Bulgaria, with iron on board.

A Ukrainian ship - Tegusigalpa – reached the site of the incident about two hours after the Vanessa went down, but waves of about three meters hindered the search effort.

Apart from some lights on the water similar to the emergency strobes, the lookouts aboard the Tegusigalpa reported no other signs of the missing crew. A land-based searcher later said he saw what appeared to be three men in the water, and a fourth in a raft.

An overturned life raft was discovered about 16 miles (10 kilometers) away by a Ukrainian search boat. Three bodies floating in the water were discovered later by the Russian and Ukrainian coast guard.

The survivor was suffering from hypothermia, but reportedly told searchers he had seen four crew members leave the vessel in a raft at the time of the sinking.