A government official yesterday said two of the nation’s nuclear power plants that are located in the vicinity of a growing fault line were safe because they were designed to withstand earthquakes up to magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale.
He added that the plants had undergone earthquake resistance improvements in the wake of the devastating tremors that rocked Taiwan on Sept. 21, 1999, or the 921 Earthquake.
Atomic Energy Council (AEC) Deputy Minister Shieh Der-jhy (謝得志) made the remarks after a report by the Central Geological Survey said two of the nation’s nuclear power plants may be sitting less than 7km from a major fault line.
The report said the Sanchiao Fault (山腳斷層), which rests 7km from Chinshan Nuclear Power Plant and 5km from Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant, was found to be more than 30km longer than previous measurements, and researchers said it could possibly lead to high magnitude earthquakes.
The Sanchiao Fault was previously believed to have ended in Guandu (關渡) in Taipei City.
The new report showed that it has extended to Jinshan Township (金山) in Taipei County on the northeastern coast.
The report prompted safety concerns about whether the two nuclear plants were built to withstand high magnitude earthquakes.
Shieh yesterday said both nuclear plants were designed to withstand magnitude 7.3 earthquakes, which is the highest figure ever recorded in the area.
Improvements to the nuclear facilities after the 921 Earthquake included sensors that would immediately shut the plants down in the event of any seismic activity, he said.
He said that from the council’s analysis, any earthquake produced by the Sanchiao Fault would peak at about 6.8.
This number is three times smaller than 7.3 because the Richter scale measures numbers based on the power of 10, Shieh said.
He said that even though experts from the AEC and the state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) have pronounced the nuclear power plants to be safe, he had asked experts from Taipower to conduct further analysis to reassure the public — especially area residents.
Council officials said that Taipower should take note of Japanese safety measures, which include thorough investigations of seismic activity near nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power provides 19.6 percent of Taiwan’s total energy production.
The AEC is considering a plan to prolong operation of the Chinshan Nuclear Power Plant, which began operation in 1978 and has a license scheduled to expire in 2018 — by another 20 years.
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
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
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