Eight people sustained minor injuries in Taipei and 59,485 households lost power on Tuesday night as the northern part of the nation was brushed by Typhoon Maria, the Central Emergency Operation Center said yesterday.
The center gave its last disaster briefing at 2:25pm.
“Everyone braved the typhoon and its aftermath with humility. God bless Taiwan that the typhoon did not cause too much damage,” Minister of Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) said, announcing that the center’s ad hoc emergency response team had been dismissed.
Photo: Eason Lam, Reuters
As of 2:30pm, electricity remained inaccessible at 3,435 households in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, as well as Hsinchu, Miaoli and Lienchiang counties.
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) planned to resume power in all households by 11pm yesterday, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.
Among the eight injured, three were hit by falling branches, three fell off motorbikes, one was injured by glass that fell from a building and the last fell down on the street.
Meanwhile, 941 people remained in shelters in New Taipei City, Taoyuan and Taichung, as well as Hsinchu, Miaoli, Yilan, Hualien and Lienchiang counties.
The Central Weather Bureau at 2:30pm lifted sea and land alerts, but kept a heavy rainfall warning for Yilan, Hualien and Lienchiang counties, as well as Keelung and New Taipei City.
All rail services resumed normal operations yesterday morning, while Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport added more flights for passengers who missed canceled flights. Taoyuan International Airport Corp said it hopes to transport all affected passengers by this morning.
As of 1pm, 40 schools across the nation were reported to have been damaged, with the total losses estimated at NT$1.09 million (US$35,760), the Ministry of Education said.
Most of the damaged schools are in New Taipei City, where 21 schools are in need of repair, with losses estimated at about NT$940,000, the ministry said.
Taipei schools suffered the second-highest losses of about NT$130,000, with eight schools damaged, followed by Keelung, where four schools were damaged at an estimated cost of NT$6,000, it said.
Jinshan Elementary School had the greatest losses of about NT$350,000, followed by Yeliou Elementary School at NT$210,000 and Laomei Elementary School at NT$100,000, all of which are in New Taipei City, it said.
No students or faculty members were injured, it said, adding that a summer camp field trip held by Taichung’s Guangfu Elementary School scheduled to take place in the mountains yesterday was canceled.
Additional reporting by Ann Maxon
The US Department of State yesterday criticized Beijing over its misrepresentation of the US’ “one China” policy in the latest diplomatic salvo between the two countries over a bid by Taiwan to regain its observer status at the World Health Assembly, the decisionmaking body of the WHO. “The PRC [People’s Republic of China] continues to publicly misrepresent U.S. policy,” Department of State spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter. “The United States does not subscribe to the PRC’s ‘one China principle’ — we remain committed to our longstanding, bipartisan one China policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, Three Joint Communiques, and
FATES LINKED: The US president said that sanctions on Russia over Ukraine must exact a ‘long-term price,’ because otherwise ‘what signal does that send to China?’ US President Joe Biden yesterday vowed that US forces would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack in his strongest statement to date on the issue. Beijing is already “flirting with danger,” Biden said following talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, in which the pair agreed to monitor Chinese naval activity and joint Chinese-Russian exercises. Asked if Washington was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, he replied: “Yes.” “That’s the commitment we made,” Biden said. “We agreed with the ‘one China’ policy, we signed on to it ... but the idea that it can be
INFORMATION LEAKED: Documents from Xinjiang purportedly showed top leaders in Beijing calling for a forceful crackdown and even orders to shoot to kill Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday held a videoconference with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet as she visited Xinjiang during a mission overshadowed by fresh allegations of Uighur abuses and fears she is being used as a public relations tool. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been accused of detaining more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the region as part of a years-long crackdown the US and lawmakers in other Western nations have labeled a “genocide.” China denies the allegations. Bachelet was expected to visit the cities of Urumqi and Kashgar on a six-day tour. The US
SUBTLE? While Biden said the US policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ on Taiwan had not changed, the group targeted China and Russia without naming them Leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the US yesterday warned against attempts to “change the status quo by force,” as concerns grow about whether China could invade Taiwan. The issue of Taiwan loomed over a leadership meeting in Tokyo of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) nations — the US, Japan, Australia and India — who stressed their determination to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region in the face of an increasingly assertive China, although Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the group was not targeting any one country. The four leaders said in a joint statement issued after their talks