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)