Twenty-four Ukrainians were rescued after their cargo ship sank following a collision with a South Korean vessel in the Malacca Strait off Malaysia, marine officials said today.

The Panamanian-registered MV California with its Ukrainian crew was en route from India to China when it collided early yesterday with the container ship, the MV Sinokor Seoul , said officials.

The accident took place some 11 nautical miles from an island near Malaysia's southwestern coastal state of Malacca, which faces the strait.

"When the collision happened, water was pouring into the ship, so all the members of the crew used their lifeboats and were then rescued by the Sinokor ," an officer with Malaysia's southern marine police told AFP.

Monitor sea pollution

He said the Sinokor , which suffered some damage, had 25 crew members, comprising 18 Koreans and seven Filipinos, and was travelling from Malaysia's western Port Klang to Singapore.

Malaysia's marine department director of safety of navigation, Baharin Abdul Hamid, said two vessels had been sent to the location to monitor and control sea pollution and to mark the area where the MV California sank.

The Malacca Strait, which separates Indonesia's Sumatra island and Peninsular Malaysia, is one of the world's most important waterways, with 50,000 ships and about one-third of world trade passing through it each year.