President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has instructed Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (李傑) to study whether to grant military personnel early discharges to help with reconstruction efforts in the wake of Tropical Storm Mindulle, an official from the Presidential Office said yesterday.
The official said Chen has asked Lee to find out immediately if any military personnel have family members who died or had their homes destroyed in the storm and to establish whether it is possible to grant them early discharges or longer leave periods so that they can return to their homes to help with reconstruction efforts.
DISASTER
Mindulle brought mudslides torrential rain and causing many mudslides. Central and southern Taiwan were especially hard-hit.
The Central Disaster Prevention Center, using figures compiled from local fire departments, as well as national and local rescue centers, reported that the death toll had fallen to 25, with 12 still missing and 16 people injured.
It said that between June 30 and yesterday afternoon, 2,337 people had been rescued, while 5,513 people had been evacuated.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense said it has put all-out efforts into disaster relief work, working around the clock.
INSPECTIONS
The ministry deployed an additional 100,000 military personnel and various types of vehicles and planes yesterday to support the disaster relief efforts in central Taiwan, beginning with inspection and repair of damaged roads and bridges.
The spokesman also said that the ministry deployed 12,000 military personnel, flew 70 sorties, made 277 vehicle journeys and 137 heavy machinery deployments on Tuesday for reconstruction work in Taichung, Hualien, Chiayi, Nantou, Miaoli, Changhwa, Kaohsiung, Tainan, Pingtung and Yunlin counties.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it