A capsized Chinese deep-sea fishing vessel sank on Wednesday in the Indian Ocean, with seven bodies recovered so far and 32 missing, the Ministry of Transport said on Wednesday.

The vessel sank at 2 am. Seven vessels carried out search and rescue operations.

A total of 39 crew — 17 Chinese, 17 Indonesian and five Filipino sailors — were on board the capsized vessel, Lu Peng Yuan Yu 028. They have been missing since 3 am on May 16 when the capsizing occurred in the central Indian Ocean.

Earlier on Tuesday, the ministry said that based on preliminary judgments there were no survivors.

The large-scale search and rescue operation was changed to a 48-hour small-scale operation on Tuesday, the ministry said.

Since the tragedy, the rescue team has searched nearly 18,700 square nautical miles, covering the largest possible drift area for people in distress, but no signs of survivors have been found.

It is believed that there are no survivors inside the vessel, according to an analysis of the capsized state of the ship, the time of incident, the structure of the hull and a previous diving operation.