The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Fisheries Agency for failing to effectively assist local governments in evacuating crew members from fishing boats moored during typhoons that made landfall between July and October last year.
The censure followed an investigation by Control Yuan members Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容) and Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲), which found that many fishers had remained aboard their vessels during typhoons Gaemi, Krathon and Kong-rey, despite local government orders to evacuate all fishing vessels under 100 tonnes.
Fifteen of 19 cities and counties with fishing ports had issued orders requiring such vessels to “fully evacuate” their crews to safety, the investigation found.
Photo: Su Fu-nan, Taipei Times
Some fishers briefly came ashore for a roll call, but were later instructed by their employers to return to their vessels, the report showed.
Such actions contravened the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act (災害防救法) and are punishable by a fine ranging from NT$50,000 to NT$250,000, the Control Yuan members said in a statement.
However, the Fisheries Agency was “passive” in overseeing the mandatory evacuations, limiting its role to compiling evacuation information provided by local governments, the members said.
They said the agency failed to assist local governments in enforcing the orders and shirked its responsibility by shifting the burden on to local authorities, highlighting what they called a case of “major negligence” in its administration.
In 2018, the agency presided over a meeting to discuss criteria for evacuating fishing crew members during typhoons, the investigators said.
However, despite increasingly extreme weather events, the agency had not updated or maintained the standards, instead saying it would abolish them altogether, reflecting an “indifferent attitude,” they said.
The Control Yuan members urged the agency to redouble efforts to support local governments in developing transparent and operable evacuation standards tailored to the specific characteristics of each fishing port to protect fishers’ safety.
The Central News Agency received reports that some migrant fishers were forced to remain aboard their vessels during Typhoon Krathon in October last year to “guard” the ships and ensure mooring lines did not snap, which could have caused the boats to drift out to sea or collide with neighboring vessels.
The crew members required to remain on board were mostly migrant workers, according to the reports.
Addressing the concerns, an agency ombudswoman cited unnamed experts who said that local governments should improve port stability and, based on scientific evidence, formulate rules on when crew members would be allowed to remain on vessels to guard them.
She said that New Taipei City, which has made notable progress in that regard, could serve as a reference for other jurisdictions.
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