French trawler collides with Turkish freighter leaving 2 missing

Rescue workers were searching overnight for two fishermen missing off France's western coast after their trawler sank following a collision with a Turkish freighter, French coastguards said. An air and sea search was launched after the freighter, the Marmara Princess, issued a distress signal but it was not known if the two French sailors aboard the 11 metre (33 foot) Beau-Rivage had survived, the coastguards said. Lifeboats and helicopters were scouring the area but there was no sign of the crew four hours after the accident, AFP reports. A search plane would scour a wide search zone around Bell-Ile, off the coast off the Morbihan region of western France, throughout the night. The Marmara Princess, transporting used cars from the German town of Bremen to Turkey, raised the alarm at around 3:00 pm (1400 GMT) after the accident south of the island, coastguard officials said. The Turkish ship was apparently not damaged but maritime authorities said they had had no contact from the trawler, whose home port is Croisic, near the western French port of St. Nazaire.