1 dead, 6 missing as Taiwanese fishing boat capsizes off Japan: Report

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) - A maritime search is ongoing to locate six missing persons after a Taiwanese fishing boat sank off Japan on Sunday afternoon, according to Taiwanese media.

Officials from Japan and Taiwan said a 53-ton fishing boat, Hsin Chang Fa No. 88, was carrying seven people, including one Taiwanese and six Indonesians.

One dead body was recovered on Monday morning, according to official news outlet Focus Taiwan.

The accident happened north of Japan’s Ishigaki Island in the country’s southern Okinawa prefecture near disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

A Japanese coast guard helicopter on Sunday afternoon spotted the boat “drifting upside down 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of Japan's Ishigaki island,” according to Taiwan’s coast guard.

Coast guard teams from Taiwan and Japan are searching for the missing crew of the boat which had departed from Badouzi Fishing Port in Keelung in northern Taiwan on Feb. 27.

The disputed Senkaku islands, known as Diaoyu islands in China, have been a source of tension between Japan and China as they are controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.