Search and rescue teams on helicopters and patrol boats yesterday continued to look for two Coast Guard Administration (CGA) officers who were reportedly swept out to sea while on patrol at Taipei Harbor (台北港) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里) on Monday.
The two missing officers, surnamed Huang (黃) and Niu (牛), from the administration’s Coast Patrol Corps No. 22, were responding to a report of a sighting of a lifeboat offshore from Taipei Harbor at about 8am.
They drove to the harbor’s outer pier, where they called the office at 9:20am, to report that they had not spotted the lifeboat and there was nothing unusual, which was their last contact with the office, the administration said.
It is suspected the patrol van was hit by a freak wave, with northeasterly monsoon winds whipping up occasional large waves, it said.
According to administration officials, the northeasterly winds yesterday morning measured between 6 and 7 on the Beaufort scale, while the waves were about 6m high.
The search and rescue operation was joined by four CGA patrol boats; divers from army special forces units; CGA coastal patrol teams and their mobile vehicle divisions; two helicopters from the National Airborne Service; search teams from the New Taipei City Fire Department and firefighters stationed at Taipei Harbor, they said.
CGA Third Coastal Patrol Division Commander Colonel Sung Tsu-yang (宋子陽) said that in addition to official personnel, civilian search-and-rescue organizations also participated in the effort to find the missing officer.
“The search-and-rescue operation involves more than 100 personnel per day and our efforts will continue until we find the two officers,” Sung said.
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