Nearly a quarter of the international flights at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport were either canceled or postponed yesterday due to the imminent arrival of Typhoon Nepartak.
As of 8:30pm yesterday, the center of Nepartak was 180km southeast of Taitung. It was moving northwest toward Taitung at 14kph, according to the Central Weather Bureau.
The bureau forecast that the center of the typhoon would make landfall at Taitung between 6am and 7am today, adding that the storm’s center is to enter the Taiwan Strait at 5pm today.
Schools and workplaces will be closed today across the nation, except for Kinmen and Matsu (Lienchiang County).
Nepartak also brought strong winds to Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼), with the wind speed reaching level 15 on the Beaufort scale. Taiwan uses an extended Beaufort scale that has a maximum reading of 17.
Figures from Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) showed that 35 outbound passenger flights and 75 inbound flights had been canceled as of 6pm yesterday, while 12 passenger flights were delayed.
Photo: Chen Kuan-pei, Taipei Times
Eighteen cargo flights were also canceled and six cargo flights were delayed.
A total of 157 domestic flights were suspended because of the storm, the Civil Aeronautics Administration said.
The Taoyuan airport denied reports that it would suspend all international flights today, saying that airlines own different types of aircraft and follow different procedures for flights under various weather conditions.
Photo: Ritchie Tongo, EPA
The airport will not be closed unless the air traffic control tower is not operating, TIAC said, advising passengers to contact the airlines for the latest flight information.
Several domestic and international carriers have announced that some of their flights will be canceled today.
EVA Airways (長榮航空) said that flights leaving from Taoyuan airport to Osaka, Okinawa and Sapporo in Japan; Incheon, South Korea; and Hong Kong, Macau and Zhengzhou, China, have been canceled.
Photo: copied by Chen Wen-chan, Taipei Times
Other flights scheduled to depart from Taoyuan airport this morning will all leave after 11am, EVA Air said.
Flights from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), Taichung Airport and Kaohsiung Airport will operate as scheduled, the company said.
Uni Air (立榮航空), a subsidiary of EVA Air, said that flights from Taoyuan to China’s Fuzhou and Qingdao have been canceled.
China Airlines (中華航空), the nation’s largest carrier, canceled flights that were scheduled to leave from Taoyuan, Songshan, Tainan or Kaohsiung. A majority of them were to take off from Taoyuan, including flights to Xiamen, Beijing and Hong Kong in China; Tokyo, Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Okinawa, Takamatsu, Toyama and Osaka in Japan; Seoul and Busan in South Korea; and Singapore.
Budget carriers and Chinese airline companies have also canceled some of their flights, such as Tigerair Taiwan (台灣虎航), Vanilla Air, Scoot and Air China (中國國際航空).
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp has suspended all services today.
The Taiwan Railways Administration canceled 130 express train service leaving before 5pm today.
NSO Opera in Concert — Verdi’s Otello at the National Concert Hall, originally scheduled for 7:30pm today, has been postponed to 2:30pm tomorrow; refunds, if needed, will be provided at the box office from 12pm tomorrow to July 22 at 8pm with no service charge.
Tomorrow’s NSO Salon Concert for the 2016-2017 season has been rescheduled to 8pm, Sunday.
Zhou Xian’s (鄒翔) solo piano recital at the Recital Hall has been rescheduled to 7:30pm on Wednesday, and the venue will be changed to National Taiwan University of Arts’ Fuzhou Performance Hall. Due to the change of venue, tickets must be refunded first and then repurchased for the Fuzhou Performance Hall (NT$500), organizers said, adding that refunds will be available until July 20.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique