A one-day interagency disaster response exercise is underway in the waters surrounding Taiping Island in the Nansha (Spratly) Islands as part of Republic of China (Taiwan) government efforts to transform the island into a base for providing humanitarian aid and supplies in the South China Sea, according to the Coast Guard Administration Nov. 29.
Operation Nanyuan No. 1 involves elements of the CGA and other central government agencies working together for the first time on and around the largest naturally formed island in the Nansha Islands. It aims to demonstrate the government’s capacity for conducting maritime surveillance and providing emergency assistance.
The drill involves three aircraft and eight vessels responding to a blaze aboard a foreign-flagged cargo ship forcing the crew to leap into the waters near Taiping Island. Its five phases are emergency notification and division of operational responsibilities; firefighting and rescue operations; supply replenishment and damage control; telemedicine and the dispatch of medical aircraft; and transferring the injured to Taiping Island and emergency medical evacuation to Taiwan proper.
Since assuming responsibility in 2000 for maintaining the government’s presence on Taiping Island as part of the Nansha Islands, as well as the Dongsha (Pratas) Islands, the CGA has conducted 70 disaster response and humanitarian aid missions and assisted 100 individuals from home and abroad.
According to the CGA, it is committed to deepening collaboration with its counterparts from neighboring countries in line with the government’s policy of working with all relevant parties to advance peace and stability in the South China Sea.
One facility playing a key role in Taiping Island’s transformation into a base for providing humanitarian aid and supplies in the South China Sea is Nansha Hospital. Equipped with 10 beds and staffed by two doctors, two nurses and one dentist, the hospital provides medical care for locally based personnel and in emergencies, foreign fishermen operating in the region.
With an area of 0.51 square kilometers, Taiping Island can sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. It also meets the criteria of an island as defined in Article 121 of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, affording the ROC full rights associated with territorial waters, a contiguous zone, a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone and a continental shelf under UNCLOS. (SFC-E)
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