55 Chinese sailors are feared dead after their nuclear submarine got entangled n a trap designed for foreign vessels in the Yellow Sea. The submarine encountered a "chain and anchor" trap, as per a confidential UK intelligence report.
This caused a malfunction in the submarine's oxygen systems, which led to the entire crew getting poisoned. China has denied the occurrence of the incident, which killed the captain of the Chinese PLA Navy submarine '093-417'.
The submarine had been in service for less than 15 years. China also refused international assistance for the stranded submarine.
"It is believed that their deaths were caused by hypoxia resulting from a system failure on the submarine. The submarine collided with a chain and anchor obstacle used by the Chinese Navy to trap US and allied submarines, leading to system failures that took six hours to repair and bring the vessel to the surface. The onboard oxygen system malfunctioned catastrophically," the UK intelligence report read.
Taiwan has denied reports of the event too. The submarine got stuck on the surface trap on August 21, when carrying out a mission in the Yellow Sea.