Call for British help as boat with 49 aboard vanishes near Falkland Islands

A Taiwanese ship with 49 people has gone missing near the Falkland Islands. The Hsiang Fu Chun, a 700-tonne squid fishing vessel, vanished shortly after its skipper reported it was taking on water, but no mayday call was made. Its crew include a Taiwanese skipper and chief engineer, along with 11 Chinese, 21 Indonesians, 13 Filipino and two Vietnamese. Some Taiwanese media have said the vessel could have lost power and may be drifting or that it could have been hijacked but a Taiwanese search effort has found no trace of it.

We’ll do everything we can even though the search is like searching for a needle in the ocean.

Huang Hong-yen, spokesman for the Taiwanese Fisheries Agency

The search is being hampered by bad weather and the remoteness of the location, with officials saying it takes six days for a boat and 11 hours for a plane to fly to the area and back again. Taiwanese authorities have now appealed for help from Argentina and Britain to find the ship. There was no evidence that the boat has sunk, a spokesman for Taiwanese Fisheries Agency said, adding that its system should issue a mayday signal when placed under certain water pressure, but no signal was sent.

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