Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday said operations at one of the Formosa Plastics Group's oil refining units in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) would remain suspended until the cause of the fire on Sunday has been identified and rectified.
Wu made the remarks after meeting Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-feng (蘇治芬), Formosa Group representatives and residents, as part of a trip to the county yesterday — his first visit to the area since a fire broke out at the No. 6 naphtha cracker complex.
Wu said permission to resume operations would only be given once an examination of the factory had been completed and it meets all the requirements to ensure operational safety.
Wu added that the Formosa Group had agreed to the township’s request to cover the expenses needed for residents from Mailiao and the nearby Taisi Township (台西) to have health examinations.
Residents will be compensated for agricultural, fish and livestock losses as a result of the pollution generated by the plant, Wu said.
The Labor Inspector Institution and the Institute of Occupational Safety and Heath are in the process of writing an initial assessment report on the causes of the fire, Wu said, adding that the Formosa Group should also present ways to improve its safety measures within one week of the initial assessment report’s completion.
The fire on Sunday, the second in a month, has resulted in severe air pollution and huge losses for local agricultural and fishery industries in Mailiao. There has also been strong opposition from local residents to a planned expansion of the petrochemical complex that is currently undergoing an environmental impact assessment by the government.
On Thursday, Su led a group of Mailiao residents to Taipei and staged a protest outside the Executive Yuan, demanding the government set up an independent investigation committee to examine the cause of the blaze. Wu did not meet the protesters at the time.
Earlier yesterday, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called for the Executive Yuan and Yunlin County Government to clarify the responsibilities associated with the fire accident.
“Both the central and the local governments should be responsible for the accident and should work together to solve the problem, rather than cause any confrontations,” Ma said during a meeting with representatives from the Chinese National Federation of Industries at the Presidential Office.
He said the government attaches equal importance to economic development and environmental protection, but if the two issues conflict, environmental protection would win out.
Citing the Basic Environmental Act (環境基本法), which states that environmental protection should be the priority if any economic or technological developments cause damage to the environment, Ma said his administration would handle related issues by adhering to the act.
“The government will have more discussions with the industry and adjust the policy on the development of local industries. We will seek to strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection,” he said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not