SEOUL ~

Four more bodies were recovered Thursday from the sunken South Korean fishing ship in the Bering Sea, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said.

The additional recovery increased the total death toll to 16, including six South Koreans and 10 South East Asian nationals.

Seven Indonesians were also found dead in the incident, three were able to be saved while tens of other Indonesians are still missing.

Chairman of The Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) said that his side has detected all identities of Indonesians in the vessel.

As the early moves, they will deliver information to the family of the victims and will hold coordination with the workers’ agency. Severe weather conditions hampered a rescue operation, officials said on Tuesday.

Eight people – a Russian official, a South Korean crew member, three Filipinos and three Indonesians – have been pulled from the water although the South Korean died of hypothermia, officials in Seoul said.

U.S. rescue helicopters joined the search operation for several hours on Tuesday but failed to make headway, South Korean Prime Minister Chung Hong-won told a meeting of government officials.

Artur Rets, the head of the maritime rescue service in Russia’s far eastern port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, had said on Monday that records showed 62 people on board.

“When the fish were being hauled in, the vessel was hit by a wave,” Rets said.

The 1,753-ton fishing vessel Oryong 501, which was catching pollack, sank in the western part of the Bering Sea near Russia on Monday when seven were rescued.

The crew on board the ship included 11 South Koreans, 35 Indonesians, 13 Filipinos and one Russian inspector.

The death toll is expected to increase further as the waters are famous for freezing sea water and stormy weather, which are hampering rescue operations. A total of 12 ships are participating in the rescue activity.

The 36-year-old vessel has been believed to begin listing after bad weather caused seawater to flood the storage parts of it. The Ministry of People’s Safety, the country’s control tower of disasters, launched an investigation into the maritime accident.

The ship left the country’s southern port city of Busan on July 10 for the Bering Sea to catch pollack.

The vessel was one of a large fleet of ships operated by Sajo Industries, which owns the world’s largest number of tuna fishing vessels, according to its Website.