President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday during a visit to one of the villages hardest hit by Typhoon Morakot last month that his administration would do its utmost so that people do not have to live in fear of natural disasters.
“The government will work to the best of its ability to protect the public from living with the fear of natural disasters,” Ma said during an inspection of Sinfong Village (新豐) in Pingtung County’s Gaoshu Township (高樹).
Ma was met by a teary Liao Lin Mei-lan upon his arrival.
Liao, who previously lived beside the Jiouliao dike along the Laonong River (荖濃溪), which was washed away by floods, told Ma that her home and farmland had been destroyed.
When the Jiouliao dike burst, it washed away 117 hectares of farmland that the 60-plus Sinfong households relied upon for their income.
“The dike has burst twice in the past, but we hope that this time the rebuilt embankment will be able to withstand flooding to ensure our safety,” she told Ma. “We hope the president himself will oversee the project.”
In response, Ma said he would see to it that the reconstruction project was completed before next May’s plum rains.
Ma said the new dike and other flood-prevention projects would be able to withstand a “once-in-200-years” flood, while the previous infrastructure had been designed to withstand once-in-a-century flooding.
At a separate setting yesterday, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said the central government would publicize a post-Morakot report on Wednesday.
Wu told a press conference after presiding over his first post-typhoon reconstruction committee meeting last week that the government was expected to complete its evaluation of mudslide-prone areas by today.
People living in areas that are not safe will be relocated in accordance with the Post-Typhoon Morakot Reconstruction Special Act (莫拉克颱風災後重建特別條例), Wu said, adding that the act had made it much easier for the government to acquire land for relocation purposes.
The central government and civic groups helping to build housing will share responsibility for building public facilities for the new communities, Wu said.
Wu said residents who needed to relocate would have to make a choice by next Saturday.
In addition to the government’s NT$120 billion (US$3.6 billion) special budget request for reconstruction, the government will use next year’s budget earmarked for less urgent government projects to carry out reconstruction work, Wu said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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