Taiwan called to make all-out effort in search for missing tourists
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The Chinese mainland Wednesday called on Taiwan to make every effort in their search for 20 mainland tourists missing on the island.
Yang Yi, the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman, said at a regular press conference here he hopes the Taiwan authorities will properly handle the incident.
A tour group from south China's Guangdong Province has been out of contact since Oct. 21, after the group's bus was hit by Typhoon Megi-triggered landslides on the Suao-Hualien Highway on the island's east coast.
Despite a six-day search, tour group leader Tian Yuan, from Beijing, and 19 tourists remain missing.
Tsai Chih-ming, a Taiwanese driver on the same bus as Tian, was confirmed dead Tuesday. His remains was recovered at a section of the highway Monday.
Yang said the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office has initiated an emergency response to coordinate rescue resources.
The National Tourism Administration and local government agencies in Guangdong have also been mobilized.
In addition, the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) is keeping in close contact with the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) on the rescue work.
In addition to the emergency response mechanism established between the mainland's Cross-Strait Tourism Exchange Association (CTEA) and the island's Taiwan Strait Tourism Association (TSTA) to deal with cross-Strait tourism incidents, in accordance with the relevant agreements, the CTEA and the TSTA will exchange opinions on building better safety systems in the future, Yang said.
