Twelve missing after ship wrecked in storm off Louisiana

By Phil Helsel - NBC News

Six people have been rescued and another 12 remain missing after a 129-foot-long commercial ship capsized off the Louisiana coast, local authorities reported Wednesday.

The Coast Guard later reported that

one of the people who was missing has died.

The boat left Port Fourchon on Tuesday with 

19 people on board

, according to the president of the Lafourche parish, Archie Chaisson III, who could not specify where it was going and what problems it could suffer before sinking.  

The Coast Guard reported that six people were rescued after receiving an emergency beacon notification around 4:30 p.m. in an area eight miles from Port Fourchon, which is south of New Orleans.

The commercial ship was described as a

cargo ship.

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The area experienced a meteorological phenomenon known as

wake lowering on

Tuesday 

, with winds of 70 to 80 miles per hour that could cause the sea to be very rough, said Benjamin Schott, a meteorologist in charge of the area office of the National Meteorological Service of New Orleans.

In search tasks involving a

plane

HC-144 Ocean Sentry Corpus Christi, Texas, and

four private boats

, as

well as

several Coast Guard ships, boats and a helicopter.

Four people were rescued from the water by private boats, the Coast Guard said.

A crew from the Grand Isle Coast Guard Station heads to a 175-foot commercial boat capsized Tuesday, April 13, 2021, searching for people in the water 8 miles south of Grand Isle, Louisiana. Coast Guard via AP

The wake loss stemmed from a complex of

thunderstorms

that moved across southeastern Louisiana, according to Schott.

This phenomenon creates a small but deep zone of low pressure, with the effect of

increasing winds

even outside of a storm.

They are rare but can happen anywhere, and Schott described Tuesday's as

"a really powerful one."

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The weather service had issued a special maritime advisory due to high winds.

The Coast Guard statement on the incident and the rescue efforts does not mention the cause of the rollover.