The Indian Coast Guard on Friday rescued nineteen crew of a Panama tanker that broke into two after a mid-sea collision with a Singaporean vessel, APL Pusan.

The tanker, Delta-I, which broke off the Gulf of Kutch, belongs to Delta Shipping of Panama and was on its way to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

According to Coast Guard officials, they received an SOS on Thursday night about the collision.

Two Coast Guard ships, CGS Sarojini Naidu and C-135, and two hovercrafts rushed to the accident site. The vessels reached at about 0800 IST and rescued the crew.

The Coast Guard says there is about 60 metric tonnes of diesel and some four tonnes of lubricant oil onboard the tanker. "There is an eminent oil pollution threat in the area," a Coast Guard official said, adding that the "local contingency plan regarding pollution response" had been activated.

The Coast Guard also dispatched advance offshore vessel CGS Samar with pollution response equipment on board.