Wreckage of Chinese warship sunk 120 years ago discovered

BEIJING: The wreckage of a Chinese warship, sunk 120 years ago during the first Sino-Japanese War, has been discovered during an underwater exploration for port construction in the Yellow Sea.

Song Peiran, vice-president of Dandong Port Group, today said the warship was found during an underwater exploration for port construction and is located 10 nautical miles southwest of the Dandong Port, sate-run Xinhua news agency reported.

He said the company has cooperated with the cultural department in Dandong City, northeast China's Liaoning Province, in studying the relic currently coded as " Dandong No 1".

The 50-meter hull was still intact but the inside tanks were badly damaged.

As the weather in the north reaches freezing point, archaeological work has been suspended.

It has not yet been decided if or when to salvage the ship, he said.

However, archaeologists have concluded the 1,600-tonne warship is likely one of the four warships with the Qing Dynasty imperial marine forces Beiyang Fleet, which was defeated by the Japanese navy in the Battle of Yellow Sea on September 17, 1894, the report said.

Historic records said captain Deng Shichang, on one of the four sunken warships, refused to leave the ship "Zhiyuan", despite it being severely crippled on fire and sinking.

He has become a model of patriotism in China over the past 100 years.

The four ships, by then, were China's most modern western vessels bought by the Chinese navy of the imperial Qing court.

They were bigger and well armed with guns than the Japanese fleet but they were slower and lacked ammunition.