At least 27 refugees, including children, died yesterday after their wooden boat shattered in violent seas off Australia before horrified witnesses, with fears as many as 50 could have perished.
Customs officials confirmed that 42 people survived the accident, but added that “tragically, initial reports are that 27 bodies have also been recovered,” as the search continued into the night.
Medics have warned there could be as many as 50 deaths among the group, thought to be from Iraq and Iran.
Christmas Island residents watched aghast from the cliffs as the tragedy unfolded below, helpless to assist those dashed against the rocks and debris as bodies floated in the churning sea and rescuers tried to save the living.
“There were children in the water. There was one very small child in a life jacket floating face down for a very long time ... clearly dead,” local shop owner Simon Prince said. “It’s something I’m not going to forget very quickly.”
Woken by the screams of victims, Prince said locals gathered life jackets and rushed to the sheer limestone cliffs to offer help, but strong winds blew the flotation devices back onshore.
The group drifted for about an hour after losing engine power and only one man managed an “incredible leap” to safety before waves smashed the vessel apart on the rocks, Prince said.
Witnesses said the boat was crowded with passengers, mostly families.
“Once it hit the rocks it shattered into pieces,” local councillor Kamar Ismail said. “I heard people screaming for help, we just said to them ‘We can’t, we can’t do much,’ we could throw them life jackets, that’s all.”
Prince said people were “crushed against jagged limestone” as navy rescuers battled towering swells to reach them in inflatable dinghies, while locals made a human chain and tried to cast ropes and life preservers down.
“The tragedy continued for some time and we witnessed people actually drowning,” said another witness Phillip Stewart.
Local electrician Michael Foster said most of the group were right next to the rocks and “you could hear the women screaming, it was trying times for people trying to help them.”
The Flying Doctors dispatched a medical jet to pick up three critically wounded people — two men with head wounds and a woman with abdominal injuries.
“We understand, and it’s not confirmed, that there are about 50 dead and 33 walking wounded,” Flying Doctors’ spokeswoman Lesleigh Green said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS