Taiwan witnessed an average of one maritime mishap every four to five days in its territorial waters last year, officials from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) reported yesterday.
With the number of maritime mishaps and the volume of routine maritime affairs continuing to increase, related government agencies have increasingly been caught with a shortage of manpower, the MOTC officials said.
The officials appealed to the government for the establishment of a maritime-affairs administration to meet the ever-increasing demands.
According to the MOTC's Statistics Department, all the nation's four harbor bureaus, namely the Keelung, Taichung, Kaohsiung and Hualien Harbor bureaus, handled a combined 106 maritime mishaps last year.
Of the total, 82 cases were maritime accidents involving merchant vessels and occurring within Taiwan's territorial waters and 24 cases were accidents happening outside Taiwan's territorial waters.
Of the mishaps that occurred within Taiwan's territorial waters, 34 cases happened in areas under the jurisdiction of the port of Kaohsiung, 33 in the port of Keelung's jurisdiction, four in the port of Taichung's jurisdiction, and 11 in the port of Hualien's jurisdiction, the MOTC officials said.
Moreover, 58 of the 82 reported accidents in Taiwan's territorial waters last year occurred "in port," while 37 of all the cases involved "collision, followed by grounding or stranding," the officials added.
Altogether, the maritime accidents left 50 crew members dead, injured or missing, four ships sunk, and 48 vessels damaged, they said.
In addition, the officials said, while Taiwan has begun to implement the port spate control (PSC) program to lower the port calling rate of ocean-going vessels, extra personnel should be added to accelerate the new control program.
* One mishap occured every four to five days last year, leaving maritime officials shorthanded.
* Eighty-two cases involving merchant vessels occured.
* Thirty-four cases occured in areas in the jurisdiction of the port of Kaohsiung, 33 in the port of Keelung's jurisdiction, four in the port of Taichung's jurisdiction and 11 in the port of Hualien's jurisdiction.
* Fifty-eight of the 82 reported accidents occured `in port,' while 37 involved collision, followed by grounding or stranding.
* The accidents left 50 crew members dead, injured or missing, four ships sunk, and 48 vessels damaged.
As the PSC program has just begun to take effect in Taiwan, vessels of lower operational standards are still allowed to call at Taiwan's ports in large numbers, limiting the effectiveness of efforts to reduce the number of maritime accidents, the officials said.
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