The Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday that it has asked the United States and other countries to extend search and rescue efforts after a fishing boat went missing off Palau. Authorities are also searching for another missing vessel off the coast of Mauritius.
Contact with the fishing trawler Sheng Feng No. 128 was lost in an area over 400 nautical miles to the northwest of Palau’s Malakal port on February 18. Taiwan’s Fisheries Agency says a Taiwanese skipper and five Indonesian crew members were aboard the missing vessel.
Authorities have requested help from Indonesia, Palau, the Philippines, and the United States. The US Coast Guard in Palau dispatched aircraft to the area late last week and issued a request for sightings through the Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel Rescue (AMVER) system.
Taiwanese authorities are also looking for another fishing vessel, the Lien Sheng Fa, with 16 souls aboard. It went missing off the coast of Mauritius on February 22. Mauritian search and rescue authorities promised to continue searching for survivors.