Four people are missing after a Singapore-registered cargo ship and a Chinese vessel loaded with sand collided in the East China Sea off east China's Zhejiang Province early on Wednesday.

An official with Zhejiang Maritime Safety Administration said the 159-tonne Chinese ship and the 36,592-tonne Singapore vessel, Beilun Seli, with a crew of 23 people, collided at 4 a.m. off Zhoushan City in Zhejiang.

The Chinese ship was damaged and all five people aboard were thrown into the sea, the official said.

One of the five was rescued by another passing ship, the official said.

The provincial maritime safety administration has dispatched ships to search for remaining four crew members, who had not been identified, and was planning to send helicopters to the site, he said.

He would not say how far offshore the accident happened, nor how many crew were aboard the Singapore vessel or how many rescue vessels were in the area.

An administration boat had towed the Chinese ship to shore.

The administration has launched an investigation into the cause of the accident and officials have boarded the Singapore ship.

(Xinhua News Agency July 1, 2009)