Reconstruction of the Central Cross-Island Highway between Kukuan and Techi, which was damaged by Tropical Storm Mindulle will be suspended until geological evaluation confirms that the area is stable enough for reconstruction.
"We have spent about NT$1.3 billion repairing roads damaged by the Sept. 21 earthquake in 1999 and NT$750 million on land conservation," Premier Yu Shyi-kun told reporters yesterday in Chiufen.
"The damage caused by Mindulle may cost between NT$4.5 billion and NT$9.2 billion for road repairs, NT$750 million for land and water conservation and NT$10.5 billion for fixing damaged reservoirs and equipment at hydroelectric plants," Yu said. "We'd waste more of the taxpayers' money if we don't decide to put it [road repair] off now."
The 25km highway segment was about to be reopened early last month when Mindulle hit, closing the road once more with falling rocks, landslides and mudflows.
Yu said that the Cabinet is drafting a special bill to cut down on or outlaw land development in mountain, coastal and flood-prone areas. The draft bill is scheduled for release by Oct. 7.
Yu also pledged to spend NT$100 billion over the next 10 years on land restoration projects.
According to Lin Sheng-feng (林盛豐), a minister without portfolio who briefed reporters about the road situation and the government's response measures, the suspension of reconstruction will cause inconvenience only between Lishan and Dongshih.
"The road between Lishan and Dongshi has been under repair since the Sept. 21 earthquake in 1999," Lin said. "Over the past five years, travelers have gotten used to taking advantage of the alternative route, Provincial Highway 14." The travel time between the two places will take an additional two to three hours, or an increase of NT$200 million in transportation costs a year.
Kukuan, a township with a population of 580, is known for its hot springs. Kukuan attracts about 398,000 tourists a year, with the tourism industry bringing annual revenues of over NT$980 million.
Most of the 3,200 Han and 1,300 Aboriginal people in Lishan make their living by growing fruits and vegetables. Lishan's annual agricultural output is worth NT$2.65 billion.
With Mindulle dumping a record amount of rain in central and southern Taiwan, the water-gathering area of the Dajia River running through Taichung County was filled with hundreds of millions of cubic meters of rocks and soil.
Equipment at six hydroelectric plants along the Dajia River was damaged. The cost to repair this damage is estimated at about NT$8.4 billion, and the repairs will take a year to complete.
With the highway segment blocked, maintenance and repair engineers can still enter the Kukuan generating plant from Lishan. In the meantime, the greater Taichung area's water supply will come from the Techi and Li Yu Tan reservoirs.
Road repairs between Kukuan and Dongshih are scheduled to be completed by the middle of this month.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the