The army yesterday unveiled a locally developed multifunction vehicle with advanced equipment for detecting radioactivity and biochemical toxins.
The vehicle, called the “97 Nuclear-Bio-Chemical Detecting Vehicle” and introduced at a military drill in Greater Taichung, was developed by the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, a research arm of the Ministry of National Defense.
Army officials said the ministry has deployed 10 of the vehicles in five regions of Taiwan in preparation for toxic gas or chemical accidents.
Photo: CNA
The vehicle is equipped with a server through which an operator with a handheld PDA can transmit accident or disaster images to disaster-relief headquarters, they said.
The server enables the operator, who wears a hazardous materials suit, to use wireless technology to transmit images and other data within 5km of the vehicle, the officials said.
The vehicle is also capable of detecting the chemical composition of spilled material from a long distance and immediately analyze the situation. It can even suggest steps for getting accidents under control, they said.
Each vehicle is estimated to cost NT$40 million (US$1.38 million), including the equipment and devices, which have to be imported.
Along with the detection vehicles, the army demonstrated command-and-control vehicles as well as other disaster prevention and relief equipment.
About 800 people, including army commander General Yang Tien-hsiao (楊天嘯) and representatives from civilian groups such as the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation and the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China, were present at the demonstration.
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