In the immediate wake of Ty-phoon Bilis yesterday morning, rivers were surging dangerously, with the potential of triggering large mudflows in mountainous areas, officials from the Council of Agriculture (COA) said.
In Jenai Township (
In Fengshan village (
COA officials, however, said that people in mountainous areas should be prepared for the possibility of more mudflows.
According to data collected by the COA's 18 mudflow monitoring stations, some communities in mountainous areas are in grave danger, including Fengchiu village (豐丘村) in Nantou County and Tungmen village (銅門村) in Hualien County. COA officials had already evacuated these areas.
To ease the pressure on full reservoirs, the Ministry of Econ-omic Affairs' (MOEA) water resource bureau (WRB) had instructed local district officials to conduct flood discharge operations.
In northern Taiwan, Shihmen Reservoir (
In central Taiwan, the flood discharge operations at Tehchi Reservoir (
Officials from the Taiwan Water Supply Corporation (TWSC) said yesterday that the water supply in central Taiwan might be affected if the turbidity got any worse.
"If the water is too turbid, we might not be able to purify it quickly, and this might force us to begin water rationing," said Li Chun-sheng (
In southern Taiwan, Peiho Reservoir (
In Kaohsiung, officials of TWSC's Seventh District Management Department (
"We can handle the turbidity now and the water supply to the Kaohiusng metropolitan area will not be affected," said a TWSC official.
About 3 million residents of the Kaohsiung metropolitan area were left without water for days after a case of serious pollution caused by the illegal discharge of toxic chemical solvents into the Kaoping River (
Officials from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday urged people to boil tap water three minutes longer than usual to ensure purity because more chlorine might have been added to purify turbid river water.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
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