Kyodo/Reuters
The U.S. Navy has stopped its search for seven missing sailors after bodies were recovered on the ship involved in a collision in Japan. Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the Navy’s 7th Fleet, said Sunday that “a number of” bodies had been recovered in flooded parts of the USS Fitzgerald, though he declined to provide further details pending notification of the victims’ families. “The damage was significant, this was not a small collision,” he said. With 300 crew members on board the ship at the time of the crash on Saturday, he said many of them would have been sleeping when the ship was flooded, and “there wasn’t a lot of time” for people to get out. Three crew members, including the ship’s captain, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, are currently being treated for injuries. The cause of the collision is unclear, but Aucoin said he would order an investigation.