Tuesday, January 11, 2000, 01:04
p.m. Pacific
3 of 18 stowaways found dead on
ship; 19 more arrested today
Immigration officials discovered 19 more Chinese nationals inside a
container on a freighter that docked this morning at Pier 46 in Seattle.
Yesterday afternoon, officials found three dead people among a group of
18 Chinese stowaways on another freighter, the Cape May, that arrived in
Seattle.
Those found this morning, all men and mostly young, were discovered
about 5 a.m. on the Hanjin Yokohama, which stopped in Hong Kong before its
arrival in Seattle, said Irene Mortensen, with the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS).
They were in good physical condition and were taken to the Regional
Justice Center in Kent, Mortensen said.
INS agents had been tipped off about people being smuggled aboard the
two ships, Mortensen said. When the Cape May arrived at Terminal 18 on
Seattle's Harbor Island yesterday afternoon, INS agents were waiting with
federal marshals and dogs.
What they discovered was shocking: Two men and an elderly woman were
found dead in the garbage-strewn interior of the container. The 15 others
who survived the two-week voyage, all men, were barefoot and weak.
The canvas top of the container was shredded, said Bob Coleman, deputy
director of the local INS office, although he didn't know whether those
inside were trying to escape or simply get air.
"It's a sad thing," said Coleman. "These people were buried alive.
Smugglers will kill people."
The 40-foot container had been in the ship's hold, stacked below four
other containers.
Virginia Kice, an INS spokeswoman in California, said they may have
died of exposure. She said the survivors told the INS that the three may
have been dead a week.
"Unfortunately, our worst fears have come to pass," Kice said. "We've
been trying to warn people all along about the very, very real and present
danger in undertaking a voyage of this kind."
A wave of stowaways
The two ships in Seattle are the latest in a wave of freighters
carrying Chinese stowaways to the West Coast. In the past 15 days, 136
Chinese on eight ships have been seized at ports in California, Washington
and Vancouver, B.C. Four of those ships were intercepted in Seattle.
All of the Cape May survivors, said to be in their 20s and 30s, were
taken to Harborview Medical Center. All showed visible signs of
dehydration and malnutrition, said Larry Zalin, a hospital spokesman.
Today, two are in serious condition and five are in satisfactory
condition at Harborview. The others are in INS custody.
Kice described the conditions in the Cape May container as extremely
cold and said the only light came from flashlights.
"These containers are designed to carry machinery and cargo, not
people," Kice said. "These people were effectively entombed."
Because the case involves deaths on the ocean, the FBI is taking over
the Cape May case.
`They could hardly stand'
In some of the recent people-smuggling cases, federal agents were
surprised to see some of the Chinese emerge from the containers wearing
new clothing and holding cell phones. Some of the containers had fans and
battery-powered lights.
Those who arrived this morning on the Yokohama were well-dressed, alert
and appeared healthy, said Coleman.
Those who arrived aboard the Cape May were in far worse condition.
"Something clearly went wrong," he said. "It could be illness, high
seas. Once people start to dehydrate and vomit it's increasingly hard to
hydrate and things can deteriorate."
Crew members said the Cape May had encountered rough seas during its
crossing from Hong Kong, leaving many of them seasick.
Roger Murray, a longshoreman who was at the scene yesterday when the
Cape May container was opened, said the floor was covered with over a foot
of garbage - mostly crushed cardboard boxes and ratty blankets - as well
as boxes of vegetables and jugs of water.
Escorted by INS agents, the stowaways emerged wearing lightweight
clothes, their hands clasped above their heads and their movements wobbly.
Murray said some of them had to be helped by an agent on each side.
"The people looked like they had just been beaten, absolutely wiped
out. They could hardly stand," he said.
Officials gave the migrants masks to prevent the spread of disease and
asked them to sit on the dock. They did, huddled in the cold rain close to
one another. One man gestured to bystanders that there were dead people
inside.
Ambulances and firetrucks raced to the scene.
Kice said the Cape May is owned by NYK, a Japanese shipping company,
and the container is owned by Yuk Yat Trading of Hong Kong. The ship left
Singapore on Dec. 19, made a stop in Taiwan and left Hong Kong bound for
Seattle on Dec. 27.
Calls to NYK's office in New Jersey were not returned.
Kice said authorities have not determined when the container was placed
on the Cape May.
Kice said it was too soon to determine whether yesterday's smuggling
incident is connected to previous cases. She does not think NYK is
involved in the smuggling.
Allegedly boarded in Hong Kong
The Hanjin Yokohama departed Hong Kong on Dec. 27, with stops in
Kaohsiung, China, and Kwangyang and Pusan in South Korea before arriving
here.
Its shipping line, Hanjin Shipping, has local offices at Pier 46 and a
main U.S. office in Paramus, N.J.
Mortensen said INS had no indication the shipping line is a part of the
smuggling operation. "They're as concerned about this as we are," she
said.
Mortensen said INS agents believed the stowaways all boarded in Hong
Kong.
The stowaways found in Seattle this week all were believed to be from
Fujian province, about 300 miles north of Hong Kong. Mortensen said it was
undetermined whether the same smuggling operation was at the heart of both
cases.
215 stowaways caught in a year
Mortensen said the stowaways from the Hanjin Yokohama were transported
on the Regional Justice Center in Kent because the INS's Airport Way South
detention building, which holds 175, is full.
INS officials don't know why there's been a spate of container-ship
smuggling in the last two weeks, but said smuggling attempts often come in
waves.
"We know we've been trying harder," Coleman said. "Part of it is hard
work, a piece is probably luck."
He said the INS has apprehended 215 container stowaways in 14 vessels
since last February, admitting that many more get through than INS
catches.
The Cape May fatalities are the first in the recent container-smuggling
cases on the West Coast.
"It's just horrible. I knew eventually we would see this."
Copyright © 2000 The
Seattle Times Company
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