Taiwan’s Fisheries Agency said Monday that one Filipino crew member on board a Taiwanese fishing boat was unaccounted for after the vessel caught fire while operating in the northern Pacific Ocean a day earlier.
A Taiwanese fishing vessel, the Hsiang Ching (祥慶), burst into flames while operating in the northern Pacific on Sunday, and 48 crew members were rescued while one member was missing, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported earlier Monday.
The Fisheries Agency under the Council of Agriculture said in a statement that the Fisheries Monitoring Center was informed of the accident at 11:50 a.m. on Sunday when the vessel was operating in the Pacific 400 nautical miles east of Kushiro Port in Hokkaido.
The 974-tonne Kaohsiung-registered vessel, focused on catching Pacific saury and squid, had a 49-person crew consisted of two Taiwanese, three Chinese, 11 Indonesians, and 33 Filipinos, the statement said.
Most of the crew members were safe and rescued by a nearby Chinese vessel Yong Fa 1 (甬發1號), before they were transferred to Hsiang Ching Tsai (祥慶財), a Taiwanese fishing boat belonging to the same company as the Hsiang Ching, the Fisheries Agency said.
It added that the boat was still smouldering and the Hsiang Ching Tsai continued to search for the missing crew member as of Monday evening, the agency said.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel