More Chinese officials arrived in Taiwan yesterday to keep abreast of search efforts to find Chinese tourists who have been missing since deadly landslides were triggered by Typhoon Megi last week.
Man Hongwei (滿宏衛), director of the China National Tourism Administration’s Department of Affairs on Tourism of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, who doubles as secretary-general of China’s quasi-official Cross-Strait Tourism Association (CSTA), reached Taipei around noon with four other officials.
After meeting with CSTA officials posted in Taiwan, Man said he planned to visit the accident site on the Suhua Highway where a bus carrying 19 tourists from China’s Guangdong Province is thought to have plunged from the road into the Pacific Ocean during stormy weather. All people on the bus, including a Taiwanese tour guide and driver, were still missing yesterday.
PHOTO: CNA
Zhang Shenglin (張勝林), deputy secretary-general of Beijing’s quasi-official Association for -Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, also arrived in Taiwan yesterday.
Meanwhile, 36 relatives of the 19 missing tourists visited the cliff edge at the east coast highway’s 112.8km marker yesterday to get as close as possible to the spot where the ill-fated bus went missing.
The family members requested that they be allowed to see the victims, dead or alive, and asked that all personal belongings found by the search team be taken back to China.
If needed, the family members will be accorded “one-on-one” assistance, said Yao Ta-kuang (姚大光), chairman of the Travel Agent Association of the Republic of China, adding that eight of the 19 missing tourists are officials of the Gongbei Land Taxation Bureau in Zhuhai.
Aside from the 21 people, three other Taiwanese travelers also remain unaccounted for.
Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said manual excavation began yesterday at the 114.5km marker of the highway, where metal detectors indicated metallic debris under the rubble in nine different locations.
The Taiwanese military has dispatched helicopters, patrol boats and Marine Corps divers to comb the areas near the landslides from all directions. To further the search, the Central Emergency Operation Center said it had asked the navy to evaluate the feasibility of mobilizing a mine sweeper to scope out the waters below the 114.5km marker of the devastated highway.
Rescuers were considering using a boat to deliver excavators to the location because the area is not safe for helicopter landing.
At the 116km marker, metal detectors were also to be used to check for possible traces of buried vehicles, Jiang said.
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