Taiwan ship carrying 49 vanishes in Atlantic after 'leak' report
International effort under way to locate ship and the 49 crew members on board
A Taiwanese ship carrying 49 crew members has vanished in the remote South Atlantic Ocean without any sign of a Mayday call but shortly after its skipper reported it was taking on water.
Its crew include a Taiwanese skipper and chief engineer, as well as 11 mainland Chinese, 21 Indonesian, 13 Filipino and two Vietnamese sailors.
The Hsiang Fu Chun, a 700-tonne squid fishing vessel, lost contact with its owners "soon" after reporting that water was leaking on to the deck at about 3am on February 26, officials said yesterday.
The vessel, built 28 years ago, was sailing about 3,100km off the Falkland Islands when it vanished, according to recorded satellite data.
Taiwan has launched a search effort and is appealing for assistance from Argentina and Britain as well as other ships in the area.
"We still don't know where the ship is and what happened to it," Huang Hong-yen, spokesman for Taiwain's Fisheries Agency, said, adding that the government had launched a search-and-rescue effort "immediately" after the ship's owners said it had lost contact.