March 16, 2015
Press Release No. 042
Upon learning on February 26 from Taiwan’s National Rescue Command Center and Fisheries Agency that contact was lost with the Hsiang Fu Chun squid fishing vessel, the Ministry of Foreign of Affairs (MOFA) promptly instructed the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Argentina to seek help from Argentina’s Navy rescue center in the search for the vessel.
The representative office maintains daily communication with the rescue center, which has issued calls for assistance through US satellites to vessels in the area where the Hsiang Fu Chun disappeared, with over 50 calls being sent out from February 26 to March 10. Thus far, the As Valentia and the Plover Arrow have reported encountering no signs of the Hsiang Fu Chun, and the other vessels have had no pertinent information either.
To stay as informed as possible, the representative office is keeping in contact with not only the rescue center, but also the Taiwanese fishing vessels Fu Kuo I, which has helped search the area recently, and the Hsiang Fa Chun, which is still vigilant in the area. In addition, Mr. Huang Lien-sheng, the ROC representative to Argentina, has flown to the Argentina Navy rescue center, which is about 800 kilometers away from Buenos Aires. There he can keep abreast of the rescue operations and request that the center do its best to find the missing Taiwanese fishing boat.
The Argentina Navy asked the United Kingdom-based Inmarsat, a satellite telecommunications company, to help detect signals from the Hsiang Fu Chun, but none has been detected thus far. In addition, taking into account the speed and directions of the current and wind, the navy has calculated that the Hsiang Fu Chun could have drifted to an area some 1,200 nautical miles from Argentina. Despite the unfavorable weather conditions, the navy dispatched a ship to those waters on the morning of March 12, with the expectation that it will arrive in the evening of March 17 (Argentina time). The ship will conduct search and rescue operations in the area for two days.
In the meantime, MOFA will continue to foster cooperation on the rescue operations, and the ROC representative office in Argentina will maintain close contact with the host country to employ all possible means to search for the Hsiang Fu Chun. (E)