The Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) yesterday said it expected to resume full operations on the South Link Line (南迴鐵路) from tomorrow, adding it would spend NT$240 million (US$7.6 million) to build a new bridge over the Taimali River (太麻里溪) in Taitung County.
The nation’s largest railway service had to partially suspend operations on the main route connecting the southern and eastern regions after torrential rain brought by Typhoon Fanapi earlier this month caused water levels in the Taimali River to rise, washing away 100m of railway embankment.
At present, passengers heading to Kaohsiung from Hualien must get off at the TRA’s Taitung Station and take a connecting bus to Dawu (大武) in Taitung County, where they can board a train again to Kaohsiung.
TRA Director General Frank Fan (范植谷) said the original plan was to make the bridge over the river accessible by Saturday. The maintenance crew in Taitung, however, worked extra hours to repair the embankment, with the Taitung-Dawu section now expected to be accessible three days earlier, he said.
Meanwhile, the TRA plans to build a new bridge over the river, a project that is expected to be completed at the end of next year, Fan said.
“We must completely change the design of the bridge,” Fan said, adding that the South Link was located in mountainous areas, making it vulnerable to natural disasters.
To comply with Water Resources Agency plans to dredge the Taimali, Fan said the TRA would also increase the length of the bridge from 250m to 520m. Rather than a single railway track system, a double-track system would be installed on the bridge, he said.
The TRA said repair work on the South Link after it was damaged by Typhoon Morakot last year cost about NT$70 million. The damage caused by Fanapi is expected to exceed NT$48 million, it said.
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