The mainland side has shown its thankfulness to the Taiwan side for its rescue of mainland sailors in Monday's shipwreck, 20 miles off the coastline of Taiwan's Lugang Township, according to the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office.

On Monday morning, at about 3:00 a.m., the Panamanian-flagged "Daji" , with 25 mainland sailors aboard, met heavy storms and sank in the Taiwan Straits (N. 24,03,1 and E. 119,58,05), on a voyage from Hong Kong to Taichung Port of Taiwan. The sailors sent SOS message and then quit the vessel.

Upon learning about the shipwreck, the Headquarters Search and Rescue (SAR) Taiwan acted immediately.

So far, 13 of the sailors have survived, eight have died, and four are still missing. The 13 survivors are now staying in two hospitals in Taiwan's Chiayi and Taichung cities, respectively.

The mainland sailors come from Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong and Liaoning provinces.

The State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office and the mainland's Association for the Relations across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) have contacted Taiwan's Strait Relations Foundation and service center for the people of the two banks across the strait, to show their gratefulness for the timely rescue by Taiwan side, and asked them to continue searching and rescuing the missing sailors and make proper arrangement for the survivors.

Meanwhile, mainland authorities have asked relevant localities to inform the families of the dead sailors to deal with the aftermath.

A spokesman of the Association for the Relations across the Taiwan Strait said the association will continue monitoring concerned matters and help the families to deal with the aftermath.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2008)