Desperate families searched through the night for scores of missing Nicaraguans on the Caribbean coast, where Hurricane Felix blew away villages, flooded rivers and killed at least 18 people. Two deaths in Honduras were blamed on Felix.
Emergency officials were sending badly needed aid to the regional capital of Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua, but had yet to reach isolated villages cut off by the storm where civil defense officials said at least 60 people were missing.
Felix came ashore on Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane, the highest level, bringing winds and heavy rains that caused mudslides, destroyed homes, uprooted trees and devastated villages.
On Wednesday, Nicaraguan Civil Defense Department spokesman Alvaro Rivas said the confirmed death toll had doubled to at least 18. He said more than 50 people were missing in the Matagalpa Province in the north, where rivers overflowed their banks, and another 10 missing around the hard-hit coastal city of Puerto Cabezas.
In Honduras, two deaths were attributed to the hurricane, and nearly 30,000 people were evacuated from across the country, with nearly 10,000 seeking refuge in government shelters.
TYPHOON FITOW
A strong typhoon closed in on Tokyo yesterday, bringing downpours and gusts that injured five people and disrupted hundreds of flights, officials and reports said.
Japan was on high alert for landslides and floods as it braced for Typhoon Fitow, which was expected to hit the capital and its vicinity by early today.
Typhoon Fitow, packing winds of up to 126kph near its center, was in the Pacific and some 200km southwest of Tokyo yesterday evening, the meteorological agency said.
If the typhoon maintains its current force, it would be the strongest to hit Japan since an October 2004 typhoon that killed dozens of people.
Public broadcaster NHK said at least five people had been injured.
Fitow was moving north at the speed of 20kph.
The strong wind cut off some electric lines, causing small blackouts, while regional authorities urged 76 households in central Yamanashi and Gunma prefectures to evacuate, NHK said.
At Tokyo's Haneda airport, more than 174 flights, almost all scheduled to take off or land in the evening, were canceled, NHK said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary