Taiwan and China are carrying out a joint search and rescue mission for two missing crew members after a Chinese fishing boat capsized near an outlying Taiwanese island and killed two, Taipei’s coastguard said.
The coastguard dispatched four patrol vessels after it received a report around 6am yestersday that the boat carrying six people had sunk 1.07 nautical miles southwest of the Kinmen Islands’ Dongding islet.
The joint operation, which includes six Chinese rescue ships, comes a month to the day after the Taiwanese coastguard’s pursuit of a Chinese fishing boat in the area left two men dead, fuelling ongoing tensions between Taipei and Beijing.
“With the joint efforts of the search and rescue units of both sides and the Dongding Garrison”, two crew members were rescued while two others “showed no signs of life”, the coast guard said in a statement.
Kinmen is a territory administered by Taipei but located 5km from Xiamen. — AFP
