LEGAZPI CITY - Loreto Llasos, Jr., the ill-fated Seaman from Daraga, Albay who was one of the 18 missing Filipino seafarers when the Greek tanker m/v Alexandros T sank off the coast of South Africa last May 4, has been persumed dead by authorities.

        Barbara Llasos, the victims’s mother, told this reporter in a telephone interview the other day that the South African government had already stopped its rescue operation because of the stormy weather there.

        Earlier, six Filipino crewmen of the Greek bulk carrier were rescued, a report from the Department of Foreign Affair (DFA) said.

        The m/v Alexandros T was sailing from Brazil to China with a load steel when the ship broke up Wednesday nigh 300 nautical miles off the coast of the harbor city of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

        The Llasos family had wanted to retrieved the seaman’s body for burial in his hometown of Daraga.

        According to SPO3 Jaime Glen Llasos, the victim’s elder brother, Loreto Jr., 35, was a marine engineering graduate of Mariners’ Polytechnic College. Loreto Jr. had been a seaman since 1998 working for different shipping companies.

        He was scheduled for a vacation this month when the accident occured, Jaime said.

        A resident of Doña Maria Subd., Daraga, Albay, Loreto Jr. is survived by his wife Cleofe, son RJ, 9, and daughters Laurice, 2 years and 6 months old and Lorefranca, 7 months old, father Loreto Sr., mother Barbara, six brothers and four sisters.