President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday declined to comment on whether government officials should apologize or step down to take responsibility for the damage and deaths caused by Typhoon Sinlaku. Instead, he said that the government would complete an investigation within a week.
Typhoon Sinlaku claimed 12 lives and several people remain missing after landslides near the Fengciou Tunnel (豐丘隧道) in Nantou County on Monday and the collapse of part of Houfeng Bridge (后豐橋) on Sunday.
Ma said yesterday that he and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) had agreed that the government would decide within a week whether government officials should be held responsible for the deaths.
PHOTO: OU SU-MEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The Nantou District Prosecutors’ Office and Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office have also launched probes into whether any civil servants should be held criminally responsible, he said.
Ma also requested that the Nantou County Government find out whether the hot spring hotels in the county were built legally. He said that any illegally built or condemned buildings should be demolished.
Regarding criticism that he had taken too long to visit the disaster areas, Ma said that he believed that it would not have been a good idea for him to go there before firefighters and rescue workers had completed their work.
He and Liu had different responsibilities, he said, adding that to avoid causing unnecessary trouble, he would rather visit disaster areas after search and rescue operations came to an end, a more appropriate time to determine how to tackle similar problems in future.
At a separate setting earlier yesterday, Liu said the government would determine which officials should take responsibility for the casualties within a week.
“Because of the problems of global warming and climate change, natural disasters pose a greater threat. Although natural disasters are terrible, man-made calamities are intolerable,” Liu said at the Cabinet’s weekly meeting.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) was singled out by some Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers, who demanded he resign over the tragic incidents.
Mao said yesterday that he would reflect on the situation, but stopped short of taking any responsibility.
The Executive Yuan yesterday announced that registration for a one-time universal NT$10,000 cash handout to help people in Taiwan survive US tariffs and inflation would start on Nov. 5, with payouts available as early as Nov. 12. Who is eligible for the handout? Registered Taiwanese nationals are eligible, including those born in Taiwan before April 30 next year with a birth certificate. Non-registered nationals with residence permits, foreign permanent residents and foreign spouses of Taiwanese citizens with residence permits also qualify for the handouts. For people who meet the eligibility requirements, but passed away between yesterday and April 30 next year, surviving family members
The German city of Hamburg on Oct. 14 named a bridge “Kaohsiung-Brucke” after the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The footbridge, formerly known as F566, is to the east of the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, and connects the Dar-es-Salaam-Platz to the Brooktorpromenade near the Port of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Timo Fischer, a Free Democratic Party member of the Hamburg-Mitte District Assembly, in May last year proposed the name change with support from members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union. Kaohsiung and Hamburg in 1999 inked a sister city agreement, but despite more than a quarter-century of
Taiwanese officials are courting podcasters and influencers aligned with US President Donald Trump as they grow more worried the US leader could undermine Taiwanese interests in talks with China, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has said Taiwan would likely be on the agenda when he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) next week in a bid to resolve persistent trade tensions. China has asked the White House to officially declare it “opposes” Taiwanese independence, Bloomberg reported last month, a concession that would mark a major diplomatic win for Beijing. President William Lai (賴清德) and his top officials
‘ONE CHINA’: A statement that Berlin decides its own China policy did not seem to sit well with Beijing, which offered only one meeting with the German official German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul’s trip to China has been canceled, a spokesperson for his ministry said yesterday, amid rising tensions between the two nations, including over Taiwan. Wadephul had planned to address Chinese curbs on rare earths during his visit, but his comments about Berlin deciding on the “design” of its “one China” policy ahead of the trip appear to have rankled China. Asked about Wadephul’s comments, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) said the “one China principle” has “no room for any self-definition.” In the interview published on Thursday, Wadephul said he would urge China to
RSS