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.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
RSS