At least 54 people have died and 15 are missing after a Russian trawler sank late on Wednesday in the western Pacific ocean near the Kamchatka Peninsula, news agencies have reported.

There were 132 people on board the Dalniy Vostok freezer trawler when it went down in waters close to freezing, the TASS news agency reported, citing an officer at a maritime rescue coordination centre in the area.

"We have recovered the bodies of 54 victims. Sixty-three crew members have been rescued alive," Russian news agency Tass reported rescuers as saying. Fifteen were still missing.

Sixty-three people were rescued from the sea and from lifeboats, many of them suffering hypothermia.

More than 25 fishing boats in the area were helping to rescue the missing crew members, the emergency services said in a statement on their website.

The ship was carrying 78 Russian nationals, as well as 54 crew from other countries including Myanmar, Ukraine, Lithuania and Vanuatu, the news agency said.

Russia's TASS news agency cited a deputy head of the Kamchatka region as saying the crew might have violated safety rules by exceeding the capacity of cargo storage.

"According to preliminary information, the shipwreck occurred while hauling a 100-tonne fishing seine," TASS cited Sergei Khabarov as saying.

The Russian Interfax news agency cited an unidentified source at the region's rescue centre as saying that large amounts of drifting ice might have damaged the body of the ship, which sank within 15 minutes.