From the Detroit Free Press:

CHINCOTEAGUE, Va. - A tanker
carrying industrial ethanol exploded
and sank about 50 miles off the
Virginia coast Saturday night, the
Coast Guard said. At least two of the
27 crew members aboard were killed,
and rescue crews were still searching
for 19 others.

Six crew members rescued were in
critical condition, said Lt. Chris Shaffer
of Ocean City (Md.) Emergency
Services.

The 570-foot tanker flying a Singapore
flag made an emergency call just after
6 p.m., saying there had been an
explosion on board, said Petty Officer
Stacey Pardini of the Coast Guard
Atlantic area in Portsmouth, Va.

The explosion occurred after a fire
started on the deck of the ship, Shaffer
said. He said 19 people remained
missing as of 9:45 p.m.

Three helicopters, three Coast Guard
boats and a C130 plane were
searching for survivors.

``When the rescue divers got on the
scene the fuel tanker was on fire,
sinking and there was people in the
water,'' Shaffer said. He said the six
people that the Coast Guard recovered
were taken to Norfolk Sentara General
Hospital were in critical condition.

Pardini said those rescued from the
tanker, which had been headed from
New York to Houston, were taken to
hospitals in Maryland and Virginia.

Robert Wocubik, a patient care
supervisor at Atlantic General Hospital
in Berlin, Md., near Ocean City, said
one man ``involved in the accident''
died at the hospital, and that two
rescue divers were treated there for
minor injuries.

Wocubik declined to provide specifics
but added, ``We are prepared to take
more injured.''