China has set up a new sea rescue base on Yongxing Island, the
biggest of the Xisha Archipelago, in the South China Sea. The base
went into operation on July 15.
The rescue station, 180 nautical miles from the Sanya Rescue
Base in China's southernmost island province of
Hainan, is equipped with a newly built rescue vessel -- the
Nanhaijiu 111.
The seas around the Xisha Archipelago are some of the busiest
international shipping routes with half of world's oil tankers
shuttling between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific through these
waters. However, frequent typhoons, monsoons, rocks and reefs make
the waters dangerous.
Built by the South China Sea Rescue Bureau under the Ministry of
Communications, the base is the eighth sea rescue center in the
South China Sea. Chinese rescuers were involved in a large-scale
marine operation in May this year just off the Dongsha Islands in
the South China Sea. They saved 330 people and were able to
retrieve 15 Vietnamese fishing boats caught in Typhoon Chanchu.
"From the new base the time taken for the rescue vessel to reach
the location of an incident will be reduced by more than 10 hours,"
said Xu Zuyuan, deputy minister of communications.
The establishment of a real time alert and rescue system was
part of the Chinese government's implementation of the
International Convention on Salvage approved by the government in
1994, said Song Jiahui, director of the ministry's salvage
bureau.
More typhoons will hit China this year partly due to the warm
ocean currents in the northwestern Pacific and high temperatures in
the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, according to the China Meteorological
Administration (CMA).
CMA data shows that typhoons caused approximately 23 billion
yuan (US$2.88 billion) of economic losses and 440 deaths between
1988 and 2004 in China.
(Xinhua News Agency July 18, 2006)
