Thousands of volunteers joined donation centers across the south yesterday to help collect and distribute items for flood victims, with some centers asking the public to hold off on making donations of goods for a few days.
More than 600 Bulletin Board System users in Kaohsiung and another 400 volunteers joined Kaohsiung City Government efforts, helping by unloading, separating and boxing up goods donated by residents of Kaohsiung and elsewhere.
The city hall lobby and front corridor were filled with thousands of boxes of goods ranging from bottled water to blankets, canned food, clothes, toiletries, flashlights and batteries.
PHOTO: CNA
Throughout the day, the volunteers stood in long lines, passing along boxes to transport them in and out of the building.
MASSIVE RESPONSE
Huang Chao-huan (黃招換), deputy director-general of Kaohsiung City Government’s Social Affairs Bureau, estimated that at least 40 busloads of goods were distributed to disaster-affected communities around the county on Monday and yesterday.
Huang said the city government was no longer accepting bottled water and hot food at the moment but was still accepting other items.
Tainan County’s donation center said it had received more than 1,600 boxes of bottled water but was in dire need of medical supplies, canned food and flashlights.
In Taitung County’s Taimali Township (太麻里), organizers asked the public to stop donating all items for now because the donation center did not have space to store it. The public can check the Internet for information on what goods the township needs and when.
TVBS on Monday held a telethon featuring a handful of celebrities and entertainers, including singer Pauline Lan (藍心湄), who auctioned one of her designer bags for NT$450,000, and musician Huang Kuo-lun (黃國倫), who donated NT$500,000.
China Television Co, the Public Television Service and Hakka TV will also hold telethons in collaboration with the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China.
Meanwhile, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) telephoned 11 local government heads in central and northern Taiwan yesterday, asking them to provide resources to the areas hit hardest by Morakot.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said Ma made the calls yesterday morning after talking to Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄). He talked to Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) and 10 other county commissioners and city mayors, Wang said.
Wang said Ma asked them to supply manpower, resources and machinery to the relief efforts, to which the local heads said they had begun doing so one or two days ago.
Wang said National Fire Agency Director-General Huang Chi-min (黃季敏) was coordinating the resources to ensure they are allocated effectively. Liu has designated Minister Without Portfolio Tsai Hsun-hsiung (蔡勳雄) to mediate if necessary, Wang said.
ONE DAY’S PAY
Also yesterday, the Presidential Office asked its employees to each donate one day’s pay to the relief funds.
The donations will go to government purchases of daily necessities for flood victims and to reconstruction projects, the office said. It said the amount was small but should set an example.
Meanwhile, Taipei City, spared from the devastation, set up a relief account yesterday for residents to donate money.
City employees were encouraged to donate one day of pay. In addition, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) donated NT$100,000.
Since Saturday, the city has dispatched rescue and recovery teams and equipment to disaster areas and helped rescue more than 500 people, Hau said. More personnel and equipment were sent yesterday morning.
MAILING PARCELS
Meanwhile, the Post Office is working with the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China and the Pingtung and Taitung county governments to deliver aid parcels to Red Cross centers and local government departments in the flood-stricken counties from today through Thursday next week.
Anyone can post an aid parcel for free.
The items needed most are articles for daily use such as bottled water, biscuits, dried or canned food and clean clothes. Donors should write the contents of the parcel in indelible ink, along with the words “Relief parcel, non-returnable” (救災包裏免予退回) and their signature. Donors may take the parcels to any Post Office and ask staff for assistance addressing them to Red Cross branches or the offices of Pingtung or Taitung County governments.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LEE WEN-YI
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
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
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,