Seven competitors in a long-distance swimming race were hospitalized yesterday after they were caught in a strong current off the coast of Kenting (墾丁) and could not make it back to shore, event organizers said. One of them was unconscious as of press time.
The swimmers were among 4,000 people aged five to 89, including more than 200 from China, trying to swim a 3km distance in the annual “International Olympic Hengchun Open Water Swimming for All” in Kenting’s South Bay (南灣).
Hosted by the Kaohsiung Adult Swimming Association, the participants were to swim 15 stages in a straight line.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
However, 30 minutes after the event kicked off at 8am, the association noticed that the weather was beginning to worsen, with strong winds generating high waves, so it shortened the event from 15 stages to 12, and eventually to just five.
The association terminated the event at 9am when swimmers increasingly began to be brought in by lifeguards, but by then, more than 300 swimmers had been swept by currents toward the northern part of the bay. Some swimmers were swept as far as the Houbihu area (後壁湖), near the outflow of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Ma-anshan (馬鞍山), Pingtung County.
One swimmer, surnamed Chang (張), said the currents swept swimmers out toward the northern edge of the South Bay and they were unable to swim back.
“We just couldn’t swim back,” another swimer surnamed Chang (張) said, adding there were a lot of elderly couples and children who used their swimming caps like flags to attract the attention of rescuers on jet skis dashing around trying to rescue the swimmers.
Liang Ming-te (梁明德), a commander at the Combined Armed Forces Training Base participating in the event, led more than 100 soldiers who were also taking part to help rescue efforts.
The Ministry of National Defense said that once the military was alerted to the incident, it placed several S-70C helicopters on stand-by in the Chiayi Air Force Base.
Local jet-ski rental owners also offered their jet skis to aid police and firefighters in pulling the people out of the water.
The Pingtung County Government and civilian organizations also mobilized personnel once they were informed, with the last swimmer finally pulled from sea at noon.
Of the people sent to the hospital, 63-year-old Shih Nan-ching (施南靖) from New Taipei City (新北市) was showing no signs of life after he was brought ashore and despite restoring blood flow to the body after administering mouth-to-mouth resucitation, Shih remained unconscious as of press time.
Another swimmer, a 73-year-old woman named Wang Ching-tzu (王靜子) from Greater Tainan, was confirmed as stable after undergoing tracheal intubation.
Since an incident five years ago in which a swimmer drowned, the event had not seen any major accidents until yesterday.
The Central Weather Bureau’s marine meteorology center said it had noticed an aberration in wave patterns early yesterday morning, adding that it had warned both yesterday and on Saturday that winds at Kenting would be at level 6 or 7 on the Beaufort Scale, with some gusts reaching level 9.
According to the center, buoys in Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) showed currents were flowing in a southeasterly direction on Saturday and on Friday, while waves yesterday morning had no distinct directional flow.
The center said the statistics sent back by its buoys were extremely odd, adding that it had not yet determined if the strange data was linked to the opposing currents.
Additional reporting by CNA
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
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat