Spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India on Tuesday expressed gratitude to the Indian Navy for their “prompt and professional rescue” operations onboard MV WAN HAI 503, which caught fire on June 9 while it was on passage from Colombo to Nhava Sheva.
In an X post, Yu Jing mentioned that 14 of those onboard the Singapore-flagged container vessel were Chinese, including 6 from Taiwan.There were a total of 22 crew members onboard the vessel at the time of the incident.
“On June 9, MV Wan Hai 503 encountered onboard explosion and fire 44 nautical miles off Azhikkal, Kerala. Of the total 22 crew members on board, 14 are Chinese, including 6 from Taiwan,” Jing wrote in the post.
“Our gratitude goes to the Indian Navy and the Mumbai Coast Guard for their prompt and professional rescue,” she added.
“We wish further search operations successful and the injured crew members speedy recovery,” the spokesperson’s X post read.The post comes amid sensitive ties between India and China, following the deadly Galwan Valley standoff between the militaries of both countries in 2020.
On May 7, after India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ targeting terror infrastructures in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), India’s Embassy in China rebuked the Chinese media outlet Global Times and withheld its social media handle in India for reporting that Pakistan’s military shot down an Indian fighter jet.
India advised Chinese outlets to verify facts and sources before publishing such reports.
Nearly a week later, India categorically rejected China’s attempts to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh and emphasised that such manoeuvres would not change the reality that Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India.
Meanwhile, coordinated firefighting operations continued through the night of June 9, following the maritime incident off Kerala’s coast.
The crew disembarked at Mangalore Port at 11.30 pm on Monday.
