THE HAGUE (AFP) - Four people were missing on Monday after a gas tanker ploughed into a sailboat on a canal in the southern Netherlands, emergency services said.

Several dive teams, helicopters, ambulances and fire engines were scrambled to the scene of the accident near Wemeldinge, around 20km from the Belgian border.

"Dive teams are in and around the boat looking for those missing. There may be four people in the water," emergency services in the Zeeland region said in a tweet.

The sailboat sank was hit earlier by a tanker, emergency services said in another tweet.

Dutch media reported that the boat was a German gas tanker headed for Antwerp in Belgium.