Seven US Navy crew missing after crash

Sunday, 18 June 2017 03:33 Written by Heart of Asia Read 50 times

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Seven US Navy crew members are missing after their ship collided with a merchant vessel off the coast of Japan.

Among the injured is the USS Fitzgerald's commanding officer, who was taken to hospital by helicopter.

The destroyer collided with the container ship about 56 nautical miles (104km) south-west of Yokosuka.

Aerial images showed heavy damage to the Navy ship's starboard side after the collision at about 02:30 local time on Saturday (17:30 GMT Friday).

What happened?

The collision occurred near Yokosuka, a Japanese port city that is home to the US 7th Fleet, which comprises up to 80 submarines and ships and including the USS Fitzgerald.

It is unclear where the 154-metre (505ft) guided missile destroyer ship was heading at the time.

The ACX Crystal, a 222-metre (730ft) Filipino-flagged container ship, was travelling between the Japanese cities of Nagoya and Tokyo.

Marine traffic records suggest the ACX Crystal made a sudden U-turn roughly 25 minutes before the collision with the USS Fitzgerald. It is not clear why it changed course.

Marine traffic records suggest it was travelling at 14.6 knots (27km/h) at the time of the collision.

Continued government failures, ineffective parliament

Parliaments in democratic societies can do a lot to save countries during tense situations. In other countries, when governments fail to deliver, and cannot respond to legitimate demands of their people, the parliaments as representatives of people take the initiative and offer logical solutions to steer the country out of the crisis, but unfortunately Afghanistan lacks such a parliament. Not only has the government failed to correct the situation, but the National Assembly also has not properly fulfilled its responsibility. Both houses of the National Assembly were largely ineffectual in the recent years.