Chinese rescue teams retrieved 17 Filipino crew members from a shipwreck in the South China Sea, authorities said on Friday.
Fifteen of those rescued were in stable condition, while two were found dead. Four others remained missing as of Friday evening.
At 00:46 on Friday, the Sansha maritime search and rescue branch received a report from the Hainan provincial maritime search and rescue center, which said a Singapore-registered cargo ship "DEVON BAY", en route from the Philippines to south China's Guangdong Province, had lost contact in waters about 55 nautical miles northwest of China's Huangyan Dao, with 21 Filipino crew members on board.
According to the provincial center, the last contact with the ship was at 21:26 on Thursday, when the ship crew reported that the hull had tilted severely and water was flooding in. Contact was lost after that, while the ship's emergency wireless position indicator later sent out an alarm signal.
Upon receiving the report, the Sansha maritime search and rescue branch immediately launched a multi-agency international rescue operation.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army Southern Theater Command sent military aircraft to conduct search operations over the waters where the accident occurred. Two nearby China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels also joined the rescue mission, along with teams from the Nanhai Rescue Bureau of the Ministry of Transport.
Multiple international commercial vessels, including ships registered in Liberia, Panama and Japan, also joined the search operation.
At 04:28 on Friday, CCG vessels found and rescued four crew members from a lifeboat. Severe sea conditions, with high winds and rough waves, posed significant challenges to the rescue operation. The search and rescue effort is still ongoing, authorities said.
The 15 Filipino sailors in stable condition have received medical treatment and are under proper care aboard a Chinese vessel, according to the CCG.
"I really feel very safe in China Coast Guard [vessel], taking me from water to the accommodation. I really feel safe. And at nighttime, I seen (saw) a Coast Guard [vessel] that was moving around the area, and that is why at that time, I am (was) telling myself that 'No, I will not die at this time, I will survive,'" said one of the rescued sailors.
China rescues 17 Filipino sailors in South China Sea shipwreck, 4 still missing
Smart technologies have reshaped China's ecological and environmental monitoring system, Huang Runqiu, minister of Ecology and Environment, said Thursday in Beijing on the sidelines of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress(NPC).
"Regarding ecological and environmental monitoring, we have been promoting the digitalization, informatization, and intelligentization of the entire monitoring process in recent years, reshaping the ecological and environmental monitoring system. For instance, in water environment monitoring and sampling, we have used intelligent drones which can quickly locate sampling points, collect samples accurately, return rapidly, and they are safe and reliable, improving work efficiency by over 70 percent. They are particularly advantageous for sampling during flood seasons and in remote areas," Huang told the press.
"In terms of environmental sample analysis, we have developed 'lights-out laboratories' in recent years. As the name suggests, these labs operate without lights and are unattended. Through robotic arms, robots, and intelligent management systems, they achieve full-process automation and intelligence from sample handover, testing, and analysis to report generation. This has significantly enhanced work efficiency, increasing it by more than eightfold compared to traditional labs. More importantly, it reduces human interference, human error, and even data falsification," he said.
Thanks to the improved ecological and environmental supervision capabilities, the number of environmental violation cases nationwide has decreased from 130,000 five years ago to 43,000 last year, representing a decline of 68 percent, Huang said.
The minister said China has already applied environmental DNA technology in the biodiversity monitoring work.
"In the field of biodiversity monitoring, monitoring aquatic organisms remains a weak point. However, significant progress has been made in recent years as we have developed environmental DNA technology. Although this chip is very small in size, it contains DNA detection information for aquatic organisms, including the finless porpoise and the Chinese sucker, from 19 state-controlled sections in the Jiangsu segment of the Yangtze River. The results showed that over the past five years, more than 20 species of aquatic organisms have increased in this river section, fully demonstrating the tangible effectiveness of the ten-year fishing ban in the Yangtze River," Huang said while showing a chip to reporters.
The 14th NPC, China's national legislature, concluded its fourth session on Thursday.
Smart technologies reshape China's ecological, environmental monitoring system: minister
