No trace of 8 missing divers found yet

Seven cutters of the CGA participated in the expanded search operation yesterday, as well as six helicopters dispatched by the National Airborne Service Corps and two sport fishing boats hired by the families of the missing divers who have been out of contact since noon Sunday. There were also an unspecified number of fishing boats joining the search since the skipper of the boat that originally carried the divers has offered an award of NT$800,000, or NT$100,000 for reporting the sighting of each diver.

The search teams covered the seas east of Taitung County as well as the seas west of Pingtung and Kaohsiung counties, but to no avail so far. Hsu Yung-kang, a deputy leader of the CGA detachment on the Hengchun peninsula, said the ocean currents were moving in a northeasterly direction Saturday and yesterday.

The families of the holiday making divers were angry in early morning when harbor security authorities at Houbihu, the largest fishing port in Hengchun, forbade them from going to sea on two hired fishing boats on grounds that they are not licensed crewmen. They had to hire two sport fishing boats to join the search.

The eight divers -- six men and two women -- went missing around noon Sunday after scuba diving in waters near Chihsingyen (Seven-Star Rock) -- located 22 km southwest of Oluanbi, the southernmost tip of Taiwan. They were identified as Hung Yu-sheng, 29; Ting Po-ling, 32; Wang Chih-yu, 25; Wang Shun-ping, 28; Tu Ting-chang, 38; Kuo Chun-hsien, 38; Lee Su-ling, 44; and Liu Hui-chun, 28.

CGA teams from Pingtung and neighboring Kaohsiung County, as well as an airborne rescue squad, launched a combined sea and air search after four of the divers' friends and the skipper of their boat reported that the eight divers had failed to return to the boat at 11:30 a.m. Saturday after an hour-long dive.

The sea around the giant rock is a favorite spot of scuba divers because the coral reefs there are unpolluted and full of tropical marine life, although the site is also notoriously treacherous because of strong currents, including the "black tide," also known as the Kuroshio Current. Several people perished or were reported missing in the same area in recent years.

Experts in the diving sport said high winds and rough seas Saturday might have also contributed to the tidal waves. They said the strong currents could have swept them farther out to sea.

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