The Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen District (石門), New Taipei City, (新北市) and the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in Wanli District (萬里), New Taipei City, each have more than 5 million people living within 30km of them — the same as the exclusion zone around Japan’s crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, an -analysis published by -Nature on Friday showed.
Taiwan currently operates three nuclear power plants. Aside from the two on the northern coast in New Taipei City, a third one is located in Ma-anshan (馬鞍山), Pingtung County.
A fourth nuclear power plant is under construction in Gongliao District (貢寮), also in New Taipei City. It is scheduled to start commercial operations at the end of next year.
The anti-nuclear movement gained new momentum in mid-March after a massive earthquake struck Japan, causing a tsunami that damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex, resulting in the release of radiation that has endangered northeastern Japan’s food and water supply.
The disaster has resonated especially strongly in Taiwan because, like Japan, it is prone to -earthquakes that could lead to a similar scenario as the one that crippled the Japanese plant.
A rally will take place in southern Taiwan later this month as part of a nationwide group of protests against the use of nuclear power in the country.
The nationwide rally, organized by Citizens of the Earth, Taiwan, will take place on Saturday next week and a total of 50 civic groups have signed up to participate in the Kaohsiung parade, said Tsai Hui-hsun (蔡卉荀), head of a local anti-nuclear association.
“All parents want their children to grow up in a better environment, and the idea of a ‘nuclear-free homeland’ can help create a sustainable living environment,” Tsai said.
On Friday, members of the anti-nuclear association and their children gathered outside the Executive Yuan’s Southern Taiwan Joint Services Center and handed in a petition against nuclear power ahead of the rally, hoping the central government will hear their message loud and clear.
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:
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