The Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (Chinese:

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

 香港海事救援協調中心, HKMRCC) is responsible for coordinating air-sea rescue

Air-sea rescue

Air-sea rescue is the coordinated search and rescue of the survivors of emergency water landings as well as people who have survived the loss of their sea-going vessel. ASR can involve a wide variety of resources including seaplanes, helicopters, submarines, rescue boats and ships...

 in Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 and an extensive area of the South China Sea

South China Sea

The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around...

. Besides the territorial waters

Territorial waters

Territorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most from the baseline of a coastal state...

 of Hong Kong, the area includes international waters

International waters

The terms international waters or trans-boundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regional seas and estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwater systems , and wetlands.Oceans,...

 lying to the north of latitude 10° north, to the west of longitude 120° east, and bounded by mainland China

Mainland China

Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...

, Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 and Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

. The area covered is known as the Hong Kong Maritime Search and Rescue Region.

The MRCC is a co-ordination centre and neither possesses nor has direct command over search and rescue

Search and rescue

Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...

 (SAR) resources. Its role is to co-ordinate all available SAR resources to perform a maritime search and rescue mission. In doing this it may call on the resources of:

• the Hong Kong Police Force Marine Region
  Hong Kong Marine Police
  The Marine Region is a branch of the Hong Kong Police Force, more widely known as the Marine Police. The marine police patrol of waters within the territory of Hong Kong, including 263 islands. The Marine Region with about 3,000 officers, and a fleet of 142 in total, made up of 70 launches and 72...
  
  
• the Hong Kong Marine Department
• the Hong Kong Government Flying Service
  Government Flying Service (Hong Kong)
  The Government Flying Service is a disciplined unit of the Government of Hong Kong. It was established on 1 April 1993, when Hong Kong was under British rule. It then took over all the non-military operations of the Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force , which was an auxiliary unit of the United...
  
  
• the Hong Kong Fire Services Department
• equivalent resources of other governments in the region
• naval forces
  Navy
  A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...
  
   in the region
• merchant shipping
  Ship transport
  Ship transport is watercraft carrying people or goods . Sea transport has been the largest carrier of freight throughout recorded history. Although the importance of sea travel for passengers has decreased due to aviation, it is effective for short trips and pleasure cruises...
  
   and fishing vessel
  Fishing vessel
  A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish in the sea, or on a lake or river. Many different kinds of vessels are used in commercial, artisanal and recreational fishing....
  
  s in the vicinity of the incident

For administrative purposes, the MRCC forms part of the Hong Kong Marine Department.

External links

• Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre website