Search and rescue efforts continued in waters northwest of Taiwan last night after a cargo ship with a six-member crew disappeared while trying to return to the Port of Taipei in stormy weather and rough seas.
Maritime and Port Bureau officials said the crew of the 165-tonne Sin Fa No. 2 (新發貳號) comprised the ship’s captain, a man surnamed Tsai (蔡), four other Taiwanese and one Indonesian, whose name was listed as Yana Mulyana.
Maritime authorities launched a massive search and rescue operation after the captain reported by radio on Friday evening that the ship began experiencing problems with its power supply system amid strong winds and high waves soon after heading out.
According to officials, the Sin Fa No. 2 had departed on Friday afternoon from the Port of Taipei, on the coast of New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), transporting fish to a harbor on Matsu. Its next destination was listed as Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province.
After all radio and satellite communications with the ship failed later on Friday evening, officials determined that the captain’s last radio contact had been from a location just 14 nautical miles (26km) from the Port of Taipei in waters off New Taipei City and Taoyuan.
The coast guard dispatched several patrol boats, including two large vessels — the 2,000-tonne CG-127 Xinbei and the 600-tonne CG-118 Keelung — to search for the missing ship over the past two days.
Eight sorties were carried out by helicopters from the National Rescue Command Center for daytime aerial reconnaissance, but no trace of the ship had been found as of press time last night.
A series of discussions on the legacy of martial law and authoritarianism are to be held at the Taipei International Book Exhibition this month, featuring findings and analysis by the Transitional Justice Commission. The commission and publisher Book Republic organized the series, entitled “Escaping the Nation’s Labyrinth of Memory: What Authoritarian Symbols and Records Can Tell Us,” to help people navigate narratives through textual analysis and comparisons with other nations. The four-day series is to begin on Thursday next week with a discussion between commission Chairwoman Yang Tsui (楊翠), Polish-language translator Lin Wei-yun (林蔚昀), and Polish author and artist Pawel Gorecki comparing
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