A Russian fishing vessel sank early Thursday in the frigid waters off the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula – killing at least 56 of its 132 crew members and leaving 13 unaccounted for, according to reports.

Sixty-three people were rescued after the giant trawler Dalny Vostok sank in the Sea of Okhotsk in just 15 minutes — so quickly that its skipper didn’t manage to send a distress signal before he drowned.

A local official said the 26-year-old ship’s crew may have violated safety rules by overloading it, a local official said.

But Vasily Sokolov, deputy chief of the Russian Fisheries Agency, denied reports about an overload, the Interfax news agency reported.

Rescue coordinator Viktor Klepikov said: “At this time we do not know what might have caused the tragedy.”

An investigative committee, meanwhile, said it was likely the trawler hit “an object,” such as drifting ice, floating in the sea.

About 1,300 fishermen and emergency workers were taking part in the rescue effort and looking for survivors and bodies even after darkness fell, Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov said.

The trawler, owned by Magellan LLC, was carrying 78 Russians and 54 foreign nationals from Myanmar, Ukraine, Lithuania and Vanuatu.

President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences and ordered all necessary measures for the rescue effort and to help the survivors.

During his first term as president in 2000, Putin was heavily criticized for not acting faster after a nuclear-powered submarine sank, killing all 118 people aboard.

The trawler’s sinking was one of Russia’s worst maritime disasters in decades. In 2011, an overcrowded tourist boat sank in the Volga River, killing 122 people.

With Post Wire Services