A US Navy warship that rescued a Taiwanese captain and seven crew members from China from a recently capsized Taiwan-based fishing boat arrived in Pearl Harbor Sunday.
The skipper and the crew of the Chih Man Chun No. 21, which sank in waters 1,046km east of Guam last week after a fire broke out in the vessel's engine room, appeared in good condition and were granted documents for a temporary stay by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, as their identification cards were lost in the accident.
PHOTO: AFP
Only 233km away when the sinking ship sent out its distress signal, the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship with a complement of 2,500 navy and marine personnel, immediately dispatched a helicopter and a team of frogmen to bring the crew to safety.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Honolulu and the fishing boat company's local agents have arranged for the crew to depart for Taiwan today on a China Airlines flight out of Hawaii.
A spokesman for the representative office said that although the mainland crew should be sent back to China, because local Chinese authorities would not provide assistance and Taipei's representative office was not in any position to repatriate them, the Taiwanese government made a new precedent by issuing them each a single-entry travel document for Taiwan.
The spokesman said that the decision was made on humanitarian grounds after much consultation between various government agencies so that the crew can be brought back safely to Taiwan first before they are returned to China.
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