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Cabinet extends `disaster leave' to cover heavy rain

From next month, schools and businesses will be entitled to a day off if local levels of rainfall reach an alert threshold to be determined by local governments, the Cabinet said yesterday.

Schools and businesses are presently entitled to "natural disaster leave" when typhoons, earthquakes or flooding occur.

Responding to a controversy over a college entrance examination that was held as Tropical Storm Mindulle swept across the nation in July, Cabinet Spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) yesterday said that people in areas subject to rainfall in excess of local thresholds will also have a day off.

A make-up examination was held in late July for approximately 600 students unable to take the Joint College Entrance Examination because of the tropical storm. It was the first time the national examination had been re-held since 1954.

The Ministry of Education came under fire earlier when it announced that the test would be held as scheduled because all 141 schools providing examination rooms for the tests had been undamaged during the storm.

The Cabinet's Central Personnel Administration discussed the matter with the Central Weather Bureau on July 15, and agreed that the education ministry should formulate a national standard for the suspension or postponement of entrance examinations.

They also agreed that the weather bureau should add two levels to its rainfall-alert system. There are only two categories at present: "heavy" and "torrential." "Heavy" rainfall refers to the accumulation of between 50mm and 130mm of rainfall in 24 hours, while "torrential" refers to more than 130 mm in 24 hours.

The new system is divided into four categories: Category 1 ranges from 50 mm to 130mm, Category 2 covers heavier rainfall up to 200mm, Category 3 refers to even heavier rainfall up to 350mm, and Category 4 covers all rainfall above that figure.

Local governments are required to submit criteria for the suspension of school or work days to the Cabinet for approval before next month.

In related news, Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday said that a NT$31.6 billion dredging project for the Keelung River had demonstrated the Cabinet's ability to get the job done.

"If it were not for this project, the Keelung River would have overflowed and more families in Hsichih would have been affected by flooding," he said.

Over 1,200 homes in Hsichih were flooded when Typhoon Haima passed beside the north of the country over the weekend.
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