IMO opens Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in South Africa
The International Maritime Organization on Jan. 16 inaugurated the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Cape Town, South Africa.
“This regional center will plug one of the remaining gaps in the global search and rescue network and help to put at rest the minds of all those whose work takes them into its area of coverage,” said IMO Secretary-General Efthimios E. Mitropoulos.
The Cape Town MRCC will also offer training to personnel from the sub-regional centers to be located in Angola, Comoros, Madagascar, Mozambique and Namibia.
Together, the Cape Town MRCC and its sub-centers, will cover sea areas extending up to 3,500 nautical miles into the Indian and Atlantic Oceans and to Antarctica in the south.
In October 2000, the IMO adopted a resolution to establish five sub-regional MRCCs in western, southern and eastern parts of Africa, along with 26 sub-centers.
The first MRCC under this initiative, located in Mombasa, Kenya, was inaugurated in May 2006, covering the east coast of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. Three more centers in West Africa, in Nigeria, Liberia and Morocco, are still in the planning stages.