China will continue to do its utmost to search for the 16 sailors still missing after a Republic of Korean (ROK) vessel collided with a container ship run by a Chinese company and sank off east China's coast on Saturday morning.

China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that China would continue to "exert all its strength to find the missing sailors in the humanitarian spirit".

The ROK ship "Golden Rose" sank off the coast near Yantai City of east China's Shandong Province, after it collided with the Saint Vincent-registered "Jinsheng", a container ship operated by Shandong Lufeng Shipping Company Ltd. The collision occurred around 3:00 a.m. on Saturday.

The first group of relatives arrived in Yantai on Tuesday while an investigation into the accident continues.

"China conveys its sincere condolences to the relatives of the missing sailors," the Foreign Ministry said in the statement, adding that China would inform the ROK side of the results of the investigation.

The crew of the "Jinsheng" ship are currently being questioned by the Liaoning Maritime Affairs Bureau and ship operators are being questioned in Shandong.

The location of the sunken ship was identified on Monday afternoon, but there is still no trace of the 16 missing crew members, eight of whom are ROK nationals, seven from Myanmar and one from Indonesia, according to figures provided by the Ministry of Communications.

Source: Xinhua