The military has been making every effort in the search for people missing since deadly landslides hit the Suhua Highway amid heavy downpours brought by Typhoon Megi last week, Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) said yesterday.
“We’re sending in more personnel and diggers ... we’re doing our best to search for the missing,” Kao said. “We hope the public will have confidence in our soldiers’ determination and abilities.”
His remarks came after relatives of 19 missing Chinese tourists from Guangdong Province held a news conference in Taipei on Wednesday and questioned the efficacy of the search operations.
PHOTO: CNA
The tour group, together with their Taiwanese bus driver and tour guide, went missing last Thursday while traveling along a portion of the Suhua Highway that was hit by landslides as rains lashed the area. Eight of the missing are officials of the Gongbei Land Taxation Bureau in Zhuhai, according to the Travel Agent Association of the Republic of China.
A Chinese tour guide from a second bus, as well as a local chicken farmer and his wife, are also missing.
Kao said the military has been working closely with the Central Emergency Operation Center.
“We have been doing everything we can in the operations,” Kao said. “More backhoes have been mobilized to join the search since Tuesday.”
Television images showed army helicopters airlifting more diggers to the disaster zone and troops combing sites along the road with metal detectors in an effort to find the coach. Navy and coastguard boats, supported by helicopters, also searched the waters off the northeastern coast amid fears the vehicle may have plunged into the ocean.
Later yesterday, the Yilan District Prosecutors Office said tests confirmed that a body part recovered from the ocean on Monday came from a female Chinese tourist.
“DNA tests conducted by the Institute of Forensic Medicine confirmed that the body part belonged to that of Gong Yen (龔艷), a member of a Chinese tour group,” chief prosecutor Lin Jhe-hui said.
Gong was a member the Guangdong Province group.
Judging from the fact that the remains were salvaged from waters 8 nautical miles (about 15km) off Yilan County, the bodies of the other missing tourists might also have ended up in the sea, Lin said.
Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Deputy Secretary-General Zhang Shenglin (張勝林) and two other Chinese officials visited the damaged section of the highway yesterday morning to observe the search efforts.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard