Seventeen fishermen were missing after a fishing boat capsized Wednesday night in the sea area off Wenzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, the local maritime police said Thursday morning.

The maritime rescue center in Wenzhou reported to the provincial maritime police at 11:30 PM Wednesday that they had lost track of a fishing boat coded 079 and suspected it had capsized. Nineteen people were on the boat.

By 2:30 AM Thursday, the rescuers had saved two fishermen but the whereabouts of the other 17 remained unknown.

Rescue work is going on and cause of the accident is being investigated.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2005)