- cross-posted to:
- globalnews
- cross-posted to:
- globalnews
Summary
Taiwan’s coastguard detained a Togolese-flagged cargo ship with a Chinese crew after an undersea communications cable connecting Taiwan to Penghu was cut.
Authorities suspect a possible “grey zone” act—hostile interference short of warfare—by China but have not ruled out an accident.
The ship, which initially ignored radio contact, was intercepted and escorted to port. Taiwan has been monitoring Chinese-linked vessels under flags of convenience due to previous cable damage incidents.
Chunghwa Telecom activated a backup cable, preventing communication disruptions.
Is there even any reason to be dragging your anchor? Isn’t the whole point that you put down the anchor when you are trying to stay still?
You can drag an anchor when you’re trying to stay still and the anchor just isn’t, well, anchored; my understanding is that bad weather can cause that.
But some of the above incidents I listed are ships that have their anchor released and are just continuing to sail along while apparently unaware of the fact that they’re hauling an anchor right through the submarine cables that they cross. Like, they aren’t victims of bad weather+bad luck. They’re just screwing up.
So they should pay for it, with jail time if need be.
Negligence isn’t an excuse, it’s a crime.
Sure, but will the ocean let your boat stay still? Waves get really big, and storms can lead to intense winds. I don’t see it as entirely unreasonable for these accidents to happen. They should be rare, but with the volume of ocean traffic we have, they kind of are. That isn’t to say we couldn’t do better, but I’m not sure this is a problem that can be 100% solved.
Sure but when you have people dragging their anchor for 300km it certainly seems like negligence at best