Cabinet Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (
"The final date to mark the completion of the tunnel's construction will be made public by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications," Cheng said.
"However, I can assure you that there will only be a ceremony to commemorate those who had dedicated their lives to this tunnel's construction," said Cheng, who also doubles as Government Information Office minister.
The spokesman made the remarks during a press conference following the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday morning.
Cheng said that construction of the tunnel, which is the fifth-longest in the world took 15 years.
At the moment, it was more important to remember the contribution and dedication of those technicians and workers who died during the building of the tunnel, he said.
"Former premiers Yu Shyi-kun and Frank Hsieh (
He added that many foreign architects and technicians had tried to dissuade their Taiwanese counterparts from continuing with the project given the difficulties involved.
"The tunnel is more than 500 meters deep and goes through a huge massif," he said.
In addition, architects and technicians had to work under the threat of continuous water leakage, which could flood the tunnel immediately and drown everybody who was working there, Cheng said.
"The completion of the tunnel has been entered into the record books," Cheng said.
"We finished the construction on our own and we should be proud of it," he said.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
Tropical Storm Fung-Wong would likely strengthen into a typhoon later today as it continues moving westward across the Pacific before heading in Taiwan’s direction next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Fung-Wong was about 2,190km east-southeast of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving westward at 25kph and possibly accelerating to 31kph, CWA data showed. The tropical storm is currently over waters east of the Philippines and still far from Taiwan, CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said, adding that it could likely strengthen into a typhoon later in the day. It is forecast to reach the South China Sea
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
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