China Commissions Advanced Rescue Ship For Emergency Response In South China Sea

China commissioned an advanced rescue vessel on Tuesday and deployed it to the waters of the South China Sea to tackle emergency response tasks. The Nanhai Jiu 103 was successfully delivered to the Nanhai Rescue Bureau of the Ministry of Transport in October 2023, and the formal operations commenced on Tuesday.

The vessel boasts surface, air, and underwater rescue features, a high-tech level, and a long operational range, per the ministry. Exclusively designed by the Shanghai Merchant Ship Design and Research Institute of the state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corp, the vessel measures about 136.9 meters in length and 26.7 meters in width and weighs about 19,000 metric tons when completely loaded.

It is also capable of sailing almost 30,000 kilometres or operating about 90 days on a single operation without the need to dock at a port or receive a fresh set of supplies, the ministry informed in a news release, mentioning that it can be loaded with a considerable helicopter as well as underwater robots for search and rescue missions.

The vessel can also conduct rescue, search, and salvage tasks for ships, aircraft, and subs in challenging situations, as it can withstand typhoons as strong as 12 on the Beaufort scale, per the Shanghai Institute. Besides rescue and salvage operations, the vessel can be used to tow disabled vessels, monitor oil spills, conduct deep-water scanning and surveys, and extinguish fires/ferry supplies to the ship in emergencies, designers stated.

Following the commissioning of the new vessel, the Ministry of Transport has four helicopters, 25 rescue vessels, and first-response professionals, enabling a 24-hour search-and-rescue capability, it observed. Shi Gongqian, the ship’s project manager with the Shanghai Institute, said that it is not an exaggeration to call Nanhai Jiu 103 the most advanced and capable rescue vessel in the world.

This ship can independently operate in any of the oceans worldwide. It is good at the work involved with maritime emergency response. It has next-gen equipment like rescue submersibles, which can dive nearly 300 meters below the surface, and remotely operated underwater vehicles/autonomous underwater vehicles capable of hitting a depth of almost 6,000 meters.

The ship-mounted crane can salvage capsized ships or wrecks as heavy as 350 metric tons. Besides, the vessel is also equipped with medical facilities, like operating rooms, Shi explained. The craft was designed to carry 30 crew members and up to 90 search-and-rescue individuals, and it can accommodate almost 200 people rescued from the disasters.

Reference: China Daily

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