After eight hours of rescue efforts, coastal defense soldiers in east China's Fujian Province rescued three Taiwanese fishermen and their fishing boat with one million yuan-worth of marine products Sunday.

On the evening of May 12, the fishing boat left Changle Port in Fujian to return to Taiwan Island. It ran onto rocks and began to sink.

The fishermen sent a distress call to the coastal defense station for help, which swiftly dispatched a rescue squad to reach the scene after 20 minutes.

In darkness and strong wind, the soldiers tried hard to reach the boat by a sampan and saved the three men, who were at their last gasp.

Failing in a four-hour attempt to drag the trapped boat using a ferry, the soldiers used two high-powered cargo ships, which were successful in bringing the boat into to a nearby port in the early hours of the following day.

(China Daily 05/15/2001)