Home countries of migrants injured in missile blunder informed: MOFA
ROC Central News Agency
2016/07/01 21:18:54
Taipei, July 1 (CNA) Taiwan has briefed the home countries of the two foreign fishing workers injured when a missile was accidentally fired from a Taiwanese military base Friday morning, hitting the fishing boat carrying the migrants, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said.
After the Ministry of National Defense reported that a Philippine fishing worker and another worker from Vietnam were wounded when a naval officer fired an anti-ship missile by mistake during a drill, the foreign ministry immediately called the representative offices of the workers' home countries in Taiwan, the MOFA said.
The ministry said it briefed the governments of the Philippines and Vietnam about the conditions of the injured workers and how they have been treated at a hospital.
A locally developed Hsiung Feng III missile was accidentally launched from one of the Navy's 500-ton Chinchiang-class corvettes from Zuoying Military Harbor in Kaohsiung City at 8:15 a.m. and hit the fishing boat "Hsiang Li Sheng" (翔利昇) about two minutes later, according to the Navy.
The fishing boat was an estimated 40 nautical miles from the harbor in southern Taiwan when the missile struck it.
The fishing boat's captain, Huang Wen-chung (黃文忠), was killed in the accident, while his son Huang Ming-chih (黃明智), a migrant fisherman from the Philippines and another from Vietnam suffered minor injuries.
The injured have been treated and released from hospital. The damaged boat has been towed to a harbor in Kaohsiung.
(By Tang Pei-chun and Elizabeth Hsu)
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