Tropical Storm Hato formed yesterday afternoon in the waters to the east of the Philippines, the Central Weather Bureau said, adding it might issue a sea and land alert for the storm within 24 hours.
Hato evolved from a tropical depression system. Its name was given by the Japan Meteorology Agency and refers to Columba, a small, faint constellation first identified in the late 16th century.
Based on projections of the storm’s movement yesterday afternoon, the bureau said it could issue a sea alert for Hato late last night, which would be followed by a land alert this morning.
As of 5pm yesterday, Hato’s center was 790km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and moving northwest at 19kph, the bureau said.
Hato’s radius had reached 100km, and it could potentially grow into a typhoon, it added.
In other news, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said many areas in Taiwan were yesterday exposed to dangerously high levels of ultraviolet radiation (UV).
People in Tataka (塔塔加) in Nantou County, where the EPA’s standard UV index reached 15 at 12pm, were at the greatest risk, the EPA said.
The UV index hit 14 on Yushan and on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu) off Taitung and 13 in Taoyuan’s Sinwu District (新屋), Taichung’s Shalu District (沙鹿), Yilan County and Taitung.
Index readings of above 11 were registered in several other areas, including Keelung and Taoyuan; Hsinchu, Miaoli, Changhua, Chiayi, Pingtung, Hualien counties; and New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), the agency said.
Given the high index levels, it urged the public to avoid outdoor activities between 10am and 2pm.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS