Typhoon Conson, whose outer edge reached Hengchun Peninsula in the southernmost part of Taiwan early yesterday morning, shifted eastward at noon, posing less of a direct threat to the nation, the Central Weather Bureau reported.
As a result, the bureau lifted land warnings for Typhoon Conson at 5:30pm yesterday, saying the typhoon had left the Taiwan area and was located at sea 190km north of Orchid island (as of 5pm) and was moving at a speed of 30kph in a northeasterly direction.
The bureau had originally issued warnings against gusty winds and torrential rains in the Bashi Channel, the Tungsha (Pratas) Islands and Taiwan's southeastern offshore areas, including Orchid Island and Green Island, until late today.
Bureau officials said that the Bashi Channel and the seas off eastern and northern Taiwan were still under the influence of the fourth typhoon formed in the Pacific this year. However, as of press time, the bureau expected to lift sea warnings yesterday evening at the earliest.
The typhoon has brought ample rain to northeastern Taiwan, the officials said, adding that Tungshan in Ilan had 228mm as of 5:30pm and Lotung 200mm.
Conson, with a radius of 150km and maximum sustained winds of up to 120kph, was centered about 60km south-southeast of Orchid Island off southeast Taiwan at 11am yesterday, moving northeasterly at a speed of 17kph to 15kph, the bureau reported.
With the typhoon's course shifting slightly eastward and its speed slowing, Conson's outer edge is expected to move off Taiwan by nightfall as the typhoon sweeps through the ocean corridor along the east of the country, bureau meteorologists said.
While students and employees on Orchid Island were given the day off due to the typhoon, no major accidents occurred due to the weather. The Typhoon Conson Disaster Response Center in Taitung County recorded no injuries within its jurisdiction except for one minor injury on Orchid Island.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not