An Indonesian sailor survived a shark attack after being rescued yesterday after the Taiwanese fishing boat he was on apparently caught fire in the East China Sea, but four other crewmen are still missing, officials said yesterday.
The Coast Guard Administration said it was informed by its Japanese counterpart at noon on Saturday that the 26-tonne Cheng Tsai Li was drifting 35 nautical miles (65km) northeast of Miyako-jima, an island in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture.
According to information provided by the Japan Coast Guard, the ship was partially destroyed and showed evidence of a fire, the administration added.
The Indonesian sailor was rescued by the crew of another Taiwanese fishing boat, it said.
“He had sustained several shark bites,” Coast Guard Administration Secretariat Director Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said.
No details of the attack or the man’s injuries were available.
Two coastguard vessels from Taiwan and two from Japan are searching for the missing crew: a Taiwanese skipper, a Taiwanese sailor and two Indonesian sailors.
“As of now, we have had no luck. We’re racing against time as the weather is cold,” Hsieh said, adding that the cause of the accident was not yet known.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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