Four fishermen returned to Taiwan safe and sound yesterday after miraculously turning up five days after their boat capsized and disappeared from the radar.
Captain Ho Mao-hsiung (何茂雄), 69, and three crew members all above the age of 55 were returning from China, shuttling a Chinese fisherman to work in Taiwan, a Fisheries Agency (FA) official said.
Fisheries regulation division director Chern Yuh-chen (陳玉琛) said the Keelung-registered Ching-hung 168 had been ferrying fishermen from China since last year, adding that five other fishing boats were authorized for this function.
“After picking up 31-year-old Chinese fisherman Xu Changyun (許長雲) on the 25th of last month, although the boat was scheduled to pick up other fishermen, Ho wanted to head back to Taiwan early because of the alarm for Typhoon Fung-wong,” Chern said.
“But on the way back the boat experienced a severe mechanical malfunction. After Ho radioed in to report the malfunction, the boat caught fire and capsized,” she said.
The agency teamed up with the Coast Guard Administration, the National Rescue Command Center, the Straits Exchange Foundation and Beijing’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, launching rescue efforts the same day, Chern said.
“On the 27th, Xu swam ashore in China and called for help, confirming that the boat had sunk,” Chern said.
While Xu swam for two days before reaching shore, Ho and his colleagues drifted for 20-odd hours, eventually arriving an uninhabited island off Fujian Province, where they spent four days, Ho told the Taipei Times by phone yesterday.
“As we drifted at sea within the storm radius of Fung-wong, we only had life jackets and a buoy ... One of my crew, Chen Chang-keng [陳長庚], could not swim very well, but we all encouraged each other to keep going,” he said.
“We basically survived on our will,” he said.
Ho, Chen, 57-year-old Lee Kun-tsai (李坤財) and 62-year-old Lin Ching-tsung (林慶宗) were together throughout their 113-hour ordeal, spending three days hiking around the uninhabited island looking for help.
The men survived on the little food they could find and rainwater, Ho said.
“After we were rescued [by a Chinese fishing boat], the Chinese authorities transported us to Beiao Island (北澳) nearby for medical attention and informed our families [so they could] come,” he said.
Asked how he felt to be back in Taiwan, Ho said: “On the island, we walked and walked, got blisters on the soles of our feet and were sunburned so badly we were shedding a layer of skin ... What kept me moving was the thought of my family; I knew they must be worried about me back home and I thought I had to get back alive and safe.”
“We are especially grateful to the governmental agencies and civil groups in Taiwan and China and the aid teams who found us and gave us medical care,” he said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS