Satellite images released on Tuesday demonstrated just how powerful the floods and mudslides unleashed by Typhoon Morakot in southern Taiwan were.
One of the most stunning images obtained by National Central University’s Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research shows the widening of the Taimali River (太麻里溪) in Taitung County.
The images showed that the upper stream of the river, which is normally approximately 10m wide, has spread to more than 800m, due in part to the large volume of mud and debris washed down from the mountain.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Chang Chung-pai (張中白), an associate professor at the center, said the mudslides observed in the wake of Morakot have been the largest on record.
“Mudflows observed in the past usually filled about 10km of the river,” he said of the 31km-long river.
“But the entire length of the Taimali River was filled with mudflows during this typhoon,” Chang said.
He said both the toppled Jinshuai Hotel in Taitung’s Jhihben (知本) hotspring area and the collapsed Shuangyuan Bridge (雙園大橋) in Kaohsiung County were located on the outer edge of a river bend, where the water’s momentum and erosive potential are the strongest.
Comparing the satellite images of the bridge taken on Jan. 14 and on Tuesday, the center found that the bridge broke up over the west side of the Gaoping River (高屏溪), the point where the water was deeper and the flow faster.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS