About 17 crew members on a South Korean cargo ship were missing after the ship capsized off the coast of Macao on Wednesday, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency said.

According to Yonhap, the 4,000-ton Zues-ho was found capsized in waters around 57 km southwest of China's Macao Special Administration Region at 4:10 p.m.(0810 GMT) by a Chinese rescue ship.

The ship lost radio contact after sending a distress call to Singaporean maritime authorities earlier on the day, Yonhap said.

Eight South Koreans, eight Myanmarians and one Indonesian sailors are missing, Yonhap said.

The Chinese authorities deployed a 3,500-ton rescue ship and anairplane to the scene to find the missing, but Typhoon Hagupit hampered the rescue ship from conducting the rescue operations, South Korea's Coast Guard said.

The Zues-ho, registered in South Korea, left Vietnam on Sunday with 6,200 tons of glass materials on board and was scheduled to arrive at the South Korean port of Masan on next Sunday, Yonhap said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2008)