TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan’s representative in Hanoi will file a strong protest with the Vietnamese government for allowing China to interfere with a meeting of the World Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce (WTCC), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said Thursday (April 11).
During the business group’s April 7-10 meeting in Hanoi, table cards showing Taiwan’s flag were removed. The use of official terms referring to Taiwan’s status as a country was also banned, CNA reported. MOFA said it was regrettable the government of Vietnam had given in to pressure from China, per Radio Taiwan International (RTI). The meeting had been prepared for several months to mark the 30th anniversary of the start of Taiwanese investments in Vietnam. The authorities also interfered with the number of official guests from Taiwan allowed to attend, while failing to notify the WTCC how many and which Vietnamese officials would be present. Singing the national anthem was also banned, though the organizers played a recording of the anthem with a video missing Taiwan’s flag.
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TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Earthquake damage to Hualien’s National Dong Hwa University (NDHU) could be as high as NT$1.92 billion (US$60 million), far surpassing an initial estimate of NT$500 million.
The Education and Culture Committee of the Legislative Yuan invited the Ministry of Education (MOE) on Wednesday (April 10) to make a report on the Hualien earthquake that struck Taiwan on April 3. Legislator Chen Pei-yu (陳培瑜), an NDHU alumni, expressed deep concern for her alma mater and hoped the MOE would provide reconstruction funds. Legislator Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) called for a special budget allocation from the Cabinet to avoid squeezing the education budget. In response, MOE Deputy Minister Lin Ming-yu (林明裕) said according to past budget allocation methods, the Public Construction Commission would handle subsidies for schools that suffered from disaster damage. Lin also said the initial damage estimate for NDHU was NT$500 million, but the latest assessment was NT$1.92 billion. “The MOE will conduct on-site inspections at NDHU this afternoon to make a more precise assessment,” he said. The magnitude 7.2 earthquake that struck Taiwan caused a fire to break out at the school’s Building D laboratory. The quake severely affected the Department of Chemistry and damaged several experiments and laboratory equipment. NDHU in a statement on Tuesday (April 10) said it plans to rebuild Building D in a nearby vacant lot and expects construction to be completed by September next year. TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Police are interviewing suspects who left graffiti on the roof of a building at Taipei City’s Jiantan Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station, reports said Wednesday (April 10).
The authorities had asked four people to show up for questioning, including one Spanish national. If found guilty, they could face fines ranging from NT$10,000 (US$312) to NT$1 million. The latest incidents occurred during the early morning hours on Feb. 16 and Feb. 19, according to the Rapid Transit Division of the Taipei City Police Department. In each case, three men scaled the fence to access the roof of a machine room at the station. They proceeded to paint graffiti messages in black and white on the walls of the roof. A review of the camera footage showed that some of the individuals were foreign nationals, according to police. One of the suspects in the first case, a 36-year-old Spanish citizen, described himself as an artist but refused to reveal his motives or to name his accomplices, according to TVBS. The Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation (TRTC) was not planning to sue the suspects, but would ask for a fine. One member of the second group, named as Chang (章), 28, had been accompanied by two others on the roof. He insisted he was the only person who had sprayed graffiti on the MRT building. Several similar incidents last year resulted in the appearance of copycats, police said, adding they would take action as soon as new cases were reported. TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The death toll from the Hualien earthquake rose to 16 Wednesday (April 6) as the bodies of a family of five were recovered from the Shakadang Trail in Taroko National Park.
The three people still missing are a couple from Singapore believed to have been hiking on the same trail, and a person at the Heren quarry in another part of Hualien County. The quake also resulted in 1,155 injured and 37 people still trapped, Radio Taiwan International (RTI) reported. Two bodies that had been found earlier were removed from under heavy rocks Wednesday, while three other bodies were located nearby. They are believed to be a couple and their three children, surnamed Yu (游). The rescue team found a bag nearby which contained the health insurance cards of the mother and the three children. The search for the couple from Singapore was focusing on an area covering 1.3 kilometers from the site where the Yu family had been found, rescue team members said. The problem was that they did not know whether the couple had continued further or retraced their steps to the starting point of their hike before the quake struck. At the Heren quarry in the township of Xiulin, access to the location where a man surnamed Hsiao (蕭) is believed missing was still blocked by heavy rocks, with four landslides occurring over the past two days. Experts reportedly advised to use explosives to clear the road and speed up the search. TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — An express train traveling from Taitung to New Taipei derailed on Wednesday night (April 10) after it hit a fallen boulder in Hualien County as aftershocks from last week's earthquake continued.
The Taiwan Railway Corporation (TRC) said none of the 146 passengers or crew were injured when the Puyuma Express No. 445 train hit the rock as it neared Heping Station in Xiulin Township at 9:10 p.m. The impact caused the front set of wheels to derail, though the train did not overturn. Station staff guided passengers to the platform to board Train No. 4046, which arrived at Heping Station at 10:21 p.m., to continue their journey to Shulin Station, where passengers were transferred to their connecting trains. The TRC said an emergency response team was formed, and a crew was dispatched for repairs. The repair crew arrived on the scene at 11:50 p.m. After inspections of the track, overhead lines, and signals were conducted, normal operations for the North-link Line resumed at 6 a.m. on Thursday (April 11). In the section where the accident occurred, Provincial Highway 9 separates the railway from the mountainside. Steel guardrails are installed along both the highway and the railway line. However, four boulders broke through the barriers near the tracks. Train No. 445 derailed after hitting one of these boulders. The TRC said measures will be taken to reinforce the steel guardrails and that it will step up route inspections to ensure safety. Passengers whose arrival is delayed by more than two hours from the scheduled time may apply for refunds or compensation at any station within one year. The TRC said the location of the derailment is not considered a high-risk area for rockfalls, and it is not covered by the existing 26 rockfall warning systems. As of Wednesday, Hualien had recorded over 800 aftershocks since a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck the county on April 3. TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Han Kuang 40 military exercises start this month with computer simulations, taking lessons from Ukraine and the Middle East into account, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said Tuesday (April 9).
The computer part of the annual drills will take place April 19-26, with the field exercises scheduled for July 22-26. Factors including the current nature of the enemy threat and Taiwan’s military capabilities, and lessons from the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts, will serve as inspiration for the drills. The computer event will simulate resistance to a blockade and the enemy using the cover of military drills to launch a potential rapid attack. The MND identified civilian roll-on/roll-off ferry ships as key threats, as military forces could easily use them to transport armored vehicles and troops. The war games will continue for eight days and seven nights, 24 hours a day, instead of the five days and four nights common during previous editions. The MND said special attention would be paid to the importance of asymmetric warfare. In the July exercises, decentralized decision-making will be important, as the complexity and uncertainty of battlefields is only growing, according to the MND. Using aircraft and ships with land-based missiles to protect shipping and break a naval blockade is also one of the subjects of Han Kuang 40. The civil defense part is aimed at fighting fires and evacuating and housing civilians during attacks from the air, the MND said. Police, firefighters, and civil defense organizations will learn how to improve their coordination. TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A distillery in Hualien suffered heavy losses from last week's magnitude 7.2 earthquake, including the destruction of vats of wine that had been aging for 30 years and thousands of bottles of rice wine.
The 2024 Hualien Earthquake caused over 10,000 jars of aged Shaoxing wine to fall to the ground in Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corporation's Hualien Distillery. Types of cooking rice wine also fell and shattered. Due to the alcohol leakage, there was a risk of explosion, so distillery staff sealed off the factory and ventilated the area before cleanup. The plant manager, Wang Cheng-li (王正利), said Hualien Distillery mainly produces various types of rice wine with a small amount of beer. About 16,000 bottles of premium red-label pure rice wine, red-label cooking rice wine, and pure cooking rice wine, valued at approximately NT$14.07 million, were lost. In addition, the warehouse stored 30-year-old "aged Shaoxing wine" in jars of about 27 liters each, many of which shattered. The company said that the aged Shaoxing wine, a Chinese rice wine used for cooking, was almost out of production. Although the company installed a "seismic protection net" after the 2018 Hualien earthquake, more jars of old wine were destroyed again by the shaking. The exact number of broken jars is yet to be determined. Hualien Distillery said that after the 2018 earthquake, they reduced the stacks of wine bottles from about six or seven layers to four layers. However, they did not anticipate this new arrangement would still not withstand the earthquake on April 3. Hualien Distillery, adjacent to Qixingtan Beach, covers 25 hectares. Several years ago, it transformed into a tourist distillery to develop locally crafted, artisanal beers. However, due to the impact of the pandemic and other crises, it focuses on the production of cooking rice wine. The factory's retail section is open for business. TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Traces of a deadly toxin have been detected in the digestive tract of the cook at a Taipei restaurant where at least 34 people have fallen ill.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) on Saturday (April 6) said on Facebook that traces of bongkrek acid were not only found on the hands of a substitute Vietnamese cook, but also in stool samples. Wang believes the cook, surnamed Ho (胡), may have inadvertently ingested the toxin when he ate food that had come into contact with his hands. Wang said all the positive cases had meals at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam between March 19-24. They had consumed either potstickers or rice noodles. Ho's test results were positive for the toxin in his feces, but his blood and biochemical tests were negative, according to Wang. He said the cook's liver functions will continue to be observed for abnormalities. Wang said that on April 4, investigators visited Ho and the cook from the Raohe branch. Fifteen samples were taken from the Raohe branch cook, and 12 samples were taken from the home of Ho, who worked at the branch in the Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store. According to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) statistics, 34 cases have been reported from the Xinyi branch so far, and two at the Raohe eatery. Of the diners sickened at the Xinyi branch, two have died, four remain in intensive care, three are staying in regular hospital wards, and 25 have returned home to recuperate. The CDC has expanded its notification criteria to those who dined at either branch from March 17-26 and experienced symptoms of discomfort before March 28. TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan Foundation for Disaster Relief raised nearly NT$290 million (US$9 million) on Monday (April 8) for earthquake disaster relief.
The foundation said in a press release that since the launch of the fundraiser on Thursday (April 4), as of 4 p.m. on Monday, it received NT$289,729,180 in donations. The breakdown includes NT$174,659,881 in the Taiwan Land Bank account, NT$34,189,390 from the WaBay crowdfunding platform, and NT$80,879,909 from LINE Pay. Starting from midnight on Tuesday (April 9), people can donate at 7-Eleven's ibon kiosks. Starting from 9 a.m. on Tuesday, donations can also be made at FamilyMart's FamiPort, Hi-Life's Life-ET, and OK Mart's OK-GO kiosks. The foundation said that the four major convenience store chains waived transaction fees for donations. A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Taiwan on Wednesday (April 3). There have been 13 reported deaths so far. TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Donggang registered fishing boat, Hunghsingyu (鴻興漁), was escorted back to Taiwan on Monday (April 8) after losing contact for five days.
The fishing boat caused alarm as it set out for sea around the same time as the 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Hualien on Wednesday (April 3). The family of the boat captain worried the boat may have been affected by tsunami waves, as they could not make contact with the boat. After failed attempts to make contact, the family appealed to the Coast Guard to search for the boat's whereabouts. On Sunday (April 7), the Coast Guard spotted the vessel 45 nautical miles southwest of Maobitou. It reported that all three individuals, including the Taiwanese boat captain and two Indonesian crew members, were safe. The Coast Guard accompanied the vessel back to Kaohsiung’s Xingda Port, where authorities checked for signs of illegal activity when the boat lost contact. After inspecting the fishing boat and finding no signs of foul play, the boat captain surnamed Chen (陳) was permitted to arrive home on Tuesday (April 9). His first action reportedly was to eat a bowl of pork knuckle noodles. In an interview, Chen said he lost contact with family members because he had purchased a second-hand satellite phone without the charger. He also said his engine was so noisy that he did not hear the Coast Guard's siren call. He later responded only when a smaller vessel approached his boat. |
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