Moscow: Seventeen people were missing and two others rescued after a Russian fishing boat sank in the Barents Sea, local media reported Monday.
The fishing boat, Onega, sank near the Novoya Zemlya archipelago with 19 people on board, Xinhua news agency quoted the local media reports citing the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations as saying.
The ministry attributed the incident to the formation of too much ice on the vessel.
A search and rescue operation is underway, but an aircraft is yet to be deployed in the wake of bad weather conditions.
IANS