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Task Force Formed in Japan to Deal With Ship-Sub Collision
The Japanese government on Saturday set up a task force to deal with a collision Friday between a Japanese fisheries training ship and a US nuclear- powered submarine off Hawaii, which caused the Japanese ship to sink and left nine Japanese missing.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori instructed government agencies concerned Saturday morning to do their best to help save the lives of the missing.
The government will send Yoshitaka Sakurada, a parliamentary foreign secretary, to Hawaii on Saturday to help deal with the local situation more effectively, government officials said.
The Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, asked the US Embassy in Tokyo and U.S. Pacific Fleet authorities in Hawaii to help with rescue efforts, ministry officials said.
Twenty-six of the 35 crew aboard the 499-ton trawler Ehime Maru were rescued after it went down following the collision with the Los Angeles-class attack sub Greeneville in the Pacific about 18 kilometers south of Oahu Island.
Among the nine who went missing are four students and two instructors from a fisheries high school in Ehime Prefecture, western Japan, and three members.
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