A P-3 “Orion” marine patrol aircraft from a US patrol squadron, as well as the US Coast Guard, took part in the rescue at sea of 10 Taiwanese fishermen on Saturday, 1,120km off the west coast of Guam.
The Honolulu-based Coast Guard District 14 - Sector Guam received an alert from an emergency position-indicating radio beacon from the Taiwanese fishing vessel Hsin Man Chun at about 4:30pm.
After a request for assistance from the US Coast Guard, a P-3 aircraft from Patrol Squadron (VP) 1 “Screaming Eagles” based at Naval Air Facility Misawa in Japan, located 10 crewmembers from the fishing vessel, which had caught fire.
VP-1 spotted eight crew-members in a life raft and two others who were still on the bridge of the burning vessel. The P-3 deployed two life rafts to assist the crew, the US 7th Fleet reported on the US Navy Web site.
At the time of the request for assistance, the Semirio — one of several foreign-flagged vessels operating in the Pacific Ocean as part of the volunteer Automated Mutual-Assistance Rescue System (AMVER) — was about 60km away from the Hsin Man Chun.
Upon reaching the burning vessel, the bulk carrier launched a small boat and rescued all 10 crewmembers.
AMVER, which is sponsored by the US Coast Guard, is a -computer-based voluntary global ship reporting system used worldwide by search and rescue authorities to arrange for assistance to persons in distress at sea.
Through the AMVER compressed message system, rescue coordinators can quickly and easily identify participating ships in the area of distress and divert the best-suited ship or ships to respond.
According to the US Coast Guard, more than 22,000 ships from about 100 countries participate in the program, the origins of which can be traced back to the sinking of the Titanic 100 years ago.
Two people were killed and another nine injured yesterday after being stung by hornets while hiking in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), with officials warning against wearing perfume or straying from trails during the autumn to avoid the potentially deadly creatures. Seven of the hikers only sustained minor injuries after being stung along the Bafenliao Hiking Trail (八分寮) and made their way down the mountain with a guide, the New Taipei City Fire Department said. Four of them — all male — sustained more serious injuries and were assisted when leaving the mountain, the department said. Two of them, a man surnamed
‘ABNORMITY’: News of the military exercises on the coast of the Chinese province facing Taiwan were made public by the Ministry of National Defense on Thursday Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills. The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement. The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching
China’s Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong has asked foreign consulates in Hong Kong to submit details of their local staff, which is more proof that the “one country, two systems” model no longer exists, a Taiwanese academic said. The office sent letters dated Monday last week to consulates in the territory, giving them one month to submit the information it requires. The move followed Beijing’s attempt to obtain floor plans for all properties used by foreign missions in Hong Kong last year, which raised concerns among diplomats that the information could be used for
Recent movements by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been “highly unusual,” but the military maintains a grasp of the situation, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said on Friday, after the military for the first time said it was monitoring troop movements in China’s Dacheng Bay (大埕灣). The minister gave the remarks to reporters before appearing at the legislature on the first day of its new session. The Ministry of National Defense on Thursday evening released an air force surveillance photograph of a PLA Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, and said it was monitoring the PLA Rocket Force and ground