More than 850,000 revelers flocked to the streets around Taipei City Hall last night for the countdown party and the annual Taipei 101 fireworks show, crowding Xinyi District (信義) in the nation’s capital in a festive atmosphere celebrating the arrival of the New Year.
The six-hour extravaganza featured dazzling displays of light and music, with Taipei Zoo’s panda cub, six-month-old Yuan Zai (圓仔), the theme of the event.
Free Yuan Zai masks and cheering sticks provided by the city government attracted long lines from noon in front of city hall.
Photo: CNA
The 218-second fireworks show at Taipei 101 was to be the highlight of the event.
Taipei 101 celebrates its 10th anniversary later this year, and chose gold and purple as the main colors for the fireworks show.
A display of 24,000 fireworks, which cost NT$30 million (US$1 million), was to be launched from the top, middle and bottom of the building featuring various designs of firework.
The fireworks were to be ignited by a laser beam fired by a 4m sculpture of comic book superhero Spider-Man in front of Taipei City Hall.
The Western-style fireworks show was to be paired with Aboriginal music from the Paiwan people to inject some Taiwanese spirit into the show.
A series of performances by top pop stars, including Paulien Lan (藍心湄), Jeannie Hsieh (謝金燕) and S.H.E, were to fuel the festive atmosphere and the party was to climax when Japanese star Masaharu Fukuyama was to interact with the crowds via a live link with Japan’s NHK TV station.
All of Taipei’s MRT lines were to run non-stop until today to cope with the large crowds of revelers expected to pack the area surrounding Taipei 101.
Taipei Rapid Transit Corp general manager Tan Gwa-guang (譚國光) said that with the launch of the Xinyi Line this year, which includes a stop at Taipei 101, most of the crowd should have left by about 3am, 40 minutes earlier than in previous years.
As of 9pm, passenger numbers on Taipei’s MRT reached 2 million, up 520,000 from the same time last year.
In addition to the tight traffic controls, the Taipei City Government’s Department of Transportation also dispatched 20 police bikes to major intersections and provided emergency services for the first time, offering rides to people with an emergency, such as finding lost children.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was due to join Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) on stage at about 11:40pm as the city began the countdown to the New Year.
The city’s Department of Environmental Protection sent more than 1,000 staff and volunteers to collect garbage at the event.
There are 264 trash cans in the area, commissioner Wu Sheng-chung (吳盛忠) said.
Elsewhere in Taiwan, various countdown parties and pop concerts were also hosted by local governments to welcome the New Year.
TAIPEI REACTIONS: Joanne Ou decried China’s ‘gangster diplomacy,’ while MOFA said its Fiji counterpart dealt fairly with the incident and protected the trade office’s rights The world should denounce the actions of Chinese embassy staffers in Fiji against a Taiwanese diplomat during a National Day celebration in Suva, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday as it thanked the Fijian government for its help after the Oct. 8 incident. Two Chinese diplomats tried to force their way into a celebration held by the Taipei Trade Office in Fiji at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva on Oct. 8, and a Taiwanese diplomat who tried to stop them taking photographs suffered a head injury. MOFA spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) told a news briefing that the ministry
The US, Japan and Australia conducted trilateral naval exercises in the South China Sea on Monday, the US Seventh Fleet announced yesterday. It was their fifth joint operations this year in the fleet’s area of operations, it said in a statement. The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain joined the JS Kirisame of the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force and the Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Arunta. The Arunta’s commanding officer, Commander Troy Duggan, said that Australia was continuing to build on its already close relationship with Japan and the US. “This activity is a valuable and important opportunity for all three nations,”
ONGOING PROBE: A former Military Intelligence Bureau colonel, major general and another colonel, as well as five other people, have been questioned by prosecutors The Taipei District Court yesterday ordered that a retired colonel from the Military Intelligence Bureau (MIB) calling himself Taiwan’s “first special agent” be detained and held incommunicado as part of an ongoing investigation into espionage allegations targeting at least three former bureau officials. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office was seeking to detain former MIB colonel Chang Chao-jan (張超然) over his alleged involvement in introducing retired agents to Chinese national security authorities and passing confidential documents to China. Chang’s actions, if proven, would contravene the National Security Act (國家安全法), which carries a prison term of three to 10 years, and the National Intelligence
Seabed waste off the west coast is 1.5 times higher than the global average, with the mouth of the Tamsui River (淡水河) nearly 90 times dirtier, the environmental consultancy IndigoWaters (澄洋環境顧問) said yesterday. The firm in September last year began collaborating with local oceanographers on Taiwan’s first survey of seabed waste off the west coast, collecting 6,000 samples from near the mouths of eight rivers and conducting 215 inspections. Of the samples, 83.3 percent were found to contain trash, the group said. Based on the survey, every square kilometer of seabed had about 121,074 pieces of trash weighing 102kg, IndigoWaters chief executive Yen
RSS