At least 54 sailors are dead and 63 have been rescued after a trawler sank off the Russian coast north of Japan. The freezer trawler with an international crew of 132 sank this morning in the freezing waters of the Sea of Okhotsk 205 miles off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. Emergency services in Kamchatka said 63 crew members of the Dalny Vostok were rescued with the sea's temperature near zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) - but a further 15 are still missing. Scroll down for video . The freezer trawler with an international crew of 132 sank this morning in the freezing waters of the Sea of Okhotsk 205 miles off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula . More than 25 fishing boats in the area helped to pull the crew members to safety, the emergency services said in a statement on their website. The ship was carrying 78 Russian nationals, as well as 54 foreign nationals from Myanmar, Ukraine, Lithuania and Vanuatu. No official cause for the sinking has been given but the Interfax news agency said drifting ice in the chilly Pacific waters may have played a role. Water flooded the engine compartment and the trawler sank within 15 minutes, the BBC said. The trawler sank 205 miles west of Krutogorovsky settlement in the Kamchatka region and 250 km south of the city of Magadan. Emergency services in Kamchatka said 63 crew members of the Dalny Vostok trawler were rescued with the sea's temperature near zero degrees Celsius (file picture of the Sea of Okhotsk) The Russian Emergencies Ministry sent an Mi-8 helicopter with rescuers and doctors aboard to deliver medical assistance and transport rescued crew members to hospitals in Magadan. Viktor Klepikov, coordinating . captain of the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky maritime rescue . coordination centre, told Reuters: 'The rescue operation is going on, we are still looking for . 15 people. 'At this time we do not know what . might have caused the tragedy.' Russia's TASS news agency cited a deputy head of the . Kamchatka region as saying the crew might have violated safety . rules by exceeding the capacity of cargo storage. 'According to preliminary information, the shipwreck . occurred while hauling a 100-tonne fishing seine,' TASS reported Sergei Khabarov as saying. A telephone hotline for families of the crew has also been set up. The home port of the trawler, which was owned by Magellan LLC, was Nevelsk in Russia's Sakhalin region.
Freezer trawler with crew of 132 sank 205 miles off Kamchatka Peninsula . At least 54 of the sailors are dead and a further 63 have been rescued . Reports suggest Dalny Vostok may have hit drifting ice in Pacific waters .