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
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching