Ship Goes Missing In Taiwanese Waters With 6 South Koreans Onboard; 2 Bodies Found
A rescue and search operation is under way for a ship that had six members on board and reportedly went missing in the waters toward the west of Taiwan. The foreign ministry of Seoul mentioned on Friday. The 322-ton Kyoto 1 sent a distress call to the maritime authorities of Taiwan had at about 9:50 a.m. on the previous day and informed the South Korean government of the accident, per the ministry. The six members of the crew are believed to be from South Korea.
The ship had set sail for Indonesia’s Batam port from Busan in South Korea, taking the Kyoto 2 tender vessel in tow, which was found in the waters. Two bodies could be recovered in waters off Taiwan. The families of the missing members are trying to identify the two bodies with their images.
An emergency response team has been formed by the ministry to look into the incident. In a different accident, a helicopter dubbed Sikorsky S-92 meant to aid the Taiwan operation unfortunately crashed in the waters off the southernmost Mara island of South Korea on Friday.
The incident took the lives of two crew members, injuring a third. The fourth crew member went missing, per reports from the coast guard. Two coast guard pilots along with two more officials boarded the helicopter when it had plunged into the sea approximately 370 km southwest of the island at around 1:32 a.m.
The chopper was heading toward the Jeju Island, its base after it had dropped off the six members of a special rescue mission at a closeby patrol ship departing for Taiwan, reported Park Je-soo, a Jeju coast guard official. The pilot experienced multiple fractures and had to be hospitalized. A search was going on to locate the fourth person who was a mechanic.
Reference: yna.co.kr
