Tropical Storm Nesat is to make landfall in Taitung tomorrow or Sunday, and a sea alert would be issued in the morning at the earliest, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday.
The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 90kph and gusts of up to 118kph at 2pm yesterday as it moved on a northwesterly bearing, bureau data showed.
Rainfall is expected throughout the weekend and people should prepare for severe weather, it said.
The agency has been preparing for emergency flooding by coordinating with its sub-divisions, Water Resources Agency Director-General Lai Chien-hsin (賴建信) said.
Levees and dams have been inspected and some floodgates have been opened as a precaution, including at the Liyutan Reservoir (鯉魚潭水庫), which was full, he said.
The nation’s 1,015 mobile heavy-duty pumps have been deployed at 950 locations in accordance with protocols signed by local governments to share the equipment in emergencies, Lai said.
The bureau has placed its 1,603 flood-response volunteers on call and 8,800 companies are assisting in monitoring the situation, he said.
Water management authorities in special municipalities and counties have been instructed to prepare for flooding, especially at locations where heavy rains caused problems last month, he said.
Ferry services between Taitung and Green Island (綠島) are to be suspended from 11:30am today until Sunday, while services between Taitung and Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu) were suspended yesterday afternoon, operators said.
The New Taipei City Department of Tourism and Travel announced the rescheduling of the international rock music festival in Gongliao District (貢寮), originally scheduled from today to Sunday.
The Hsinchu Cultural Affairs Bureau announced the cancelation of an open-air theater event and cultural-and-creative market fair that were to take place over the weekend.
This story has been amended since it was first published to correct the date of Nesat's predicted landfall.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS