About 100 residents from Namasiya (那瑪夏) and Taoyuan (桃源) districts in Greater Kaohsiung protested in front of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) yesterday over its decision to suspend reconstruction projects on Provincial Highway Nos. 20 and 21.
Highway No. 21 is the only highway to Namasiya, while Highway No. 20, also known as the Southern Cross-Island Highway, is the only provincial highway to Taoyuan District. The two districts, as well as the highways, were severely damaged by Typhoon Morakot two years ago.
The Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) has made the two highways accessible by building disaster-resistant makeshift passages at damaged road sections.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Protesters said Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) had promised them that the government would complete the reconstruction of the Southern Cross-Island Highway by next year.
However, Mao said last week that reconstruction of the highway would be suspended in the short term.
The protesters said the government’s promises turned out to be lies and that it did not regard Aborigines as citizens.
Seven residents in those two areas have died in the past two years because of inconvenient transportation, they said.
“Either they were washed away by surging water in the river or they fell off a cliff,” one protester said of the victims. “Some of the sick ones died on their way to hospital.”
Liu Hsing-chien (劉行健) of Taoyuan District said the government had said last week that between 95 percent and 98 percent of the infrastructure in disaster zones had been rebuilt.
However, the residents certainly do not feel that way, Liu said.
Others accused the DGH of being inefficient in executing highway reconstruction projects, adding that some of the agency’s rebuilding plans indicated bad judgement and wasted taxpayers’ money.
Namasiya District Adminstrator Bayang Isiliduan (白樣.伊斯理緞) said he watched between 100 and 200 cars pass through Nanhua District (南化) daily on Greater Tainan Road No. 179 during rainy season and wondered what would happen if any drove off a cliff.
Isiliduan said a DGH official had informed him that reconstruction of Highway No. 21 could be suspended because of lack of funds.
Spending on the project has already reached NT$3.2 billion (US$110.4 million).
“If the government suspends the project or decides not to allocate the budget for it, Namasiya will be destroyed because Highway No. 21 is Namasiya’s only lifeline,” he said. “I feel so ashamed.”
DGH Deputy Director Chao Hsin-hua (趙興華) accepted the petition from the protesters.
“We had finished evaluations for the reconstruction of the two highways, which still need to be approved by the MOTC and the Executive Yuan,” Chao said, adding that it could take at least six months before the evaluation report is submitted for review at the Executive Yuan.
Funding and time needed would be determined after the evaluation is approved, Chao said.
The DGH said torrential rain that hit central and southern parts of the country on July 19 elevated the riverbed along Highway No. 20 and lengthened the river along Highway No. 21. Under such circumstances, the agency said it had to be cautious to avoid repeating the mistakes it made with the Central Cross-Island Highway, which cost the nation about NT$2 billion to rebuild after the 921 Earthquake in 1999.
While the Central Cross-Island Highway was scheduled to reopen on July 15, 2004, it was heavily damaged by Typhoon Mindulle on July 2 that year.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai