The military is to temporarily halt landing drills involving inflatable raiding craft pending safety reassessments, following a fatal incident on Friday last week, a navy official said.
The announcement came after the incident in waters off Taoziyuan (桃子園) beach in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營), which left two marines dead.
The landing drill was part of preparations for the annual Han Kuang military exercises, which test the capabilities of Taiwan’s armed forces in repelling a potential invasion by China.
However, joint landing drills involving other maneuvers under the annual Han Kuang military exercises, to be held from tomorrow to Friday, would proceed as planned, said Vice Admiral Sun Chang-teh (孫常德), the navy’s political warfare chief.
In last week’s incident, two of the eight raiding craft overturned about 160m offshore at 8:48am, due to an unexpected wave surge, which threw 14 marines into rough seas, Sun said.
Eleven of the marines swam to shore, while two others were rescued about 20 minutes later and the body of another was recovered at 11:30am, Sun said, citing the initial findings of an investigation into the incident.
Sun discounted factors such as human error and equipment malfunction as possible causes of the incident, saying that all participants in the drill hold certificates of qualification and four preparatory training sessions had been conducted in the vicinity.
All raiding craft and their engines had also been inspected and found to be functioning normally, he added.
The two soldiers who died and the one in critical condition were asphyxiated from inhaling water into their lungs, lowering their capacity to supply oxygen to their organs and causing brain damage, Sun said.
Sun did not confirm whether the soldiers were found face down or face up, nor was he able to explain why they had drowned despite wearing inflatable life jackets.
He said that further investigation was needed.
Regarding the suspected suicide of one of the supervisors overseeing the drill, a lieutenant commander surnamed Yang (楊), Sun said that the local prosecutors’ office was investigating the matter and would report its findings to Yang’s family.
Yang early on Sunday last week was found dead in his room at Kaohsiung’s Zuoying Naval Base in an apparent suicide, hours after one of the soldiers injured in the drill had died in a hospital.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday briefed her party’s Central Standing Committee regarding her scheduled visit to the US between Monday next week and June 16, saying that her purpose would be to persuade the US that the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution was a “one China” constitution that would foster stable and peaceful cross-strait relations. The ROC Constitution is the most important defense for all Taiwanese citizens, as it upholds our democracy and has contributed to our robust economy, which aligns with international and US interests, she said. “We would not be troublemakers and drag the US under,”
RSS