Decreasing rainfall led to the reopening of Highway 18 in Alishan and the popular Alishan National Forest Recreation Area in Chiayi County, southern Taiwan yesterday.
After being closed for five days as a preventive measure to avoid disasters triggered by heavy downpours, Highway 18 between the 66km to 88km mark was reopened at 8am by the Directorate-General of Highways, the Forestry Bureau of Chiayi said. The recreation area was opened a while later at 10am.
The torrential rain did not cause any severe damage to the disaster-prone recreation area, the bureau said.
However, the Shenmu line — one of the three Alishan railway branch lines — will remain temporarily closed and services will only resume after the line passes a safety inspection, the bureau added. The total rainfall in Alishan Township (阿里山) amounted to only 58mm between midnight and 10am yesterday, less than the 133.5mm recorded in the coastal Chiayi township of Dongshih (東石).
The total amount of rainfall measured in Dongshih over the same period a day earlier was 209mm, the third-highest amount in Taiwan in the recent rainy period.
In related news, the Council of Agriculture said the agricultural damage from the heavy rain that has drenched parts of the country since Sunday had reached an estimated NT$483.99 million (US$16.18 million) as of 3pm yesterday.
Total crop damage came to approximately NT$291.53 million and the total affected area was about 12,611 hectares with a 16 percent damage rate, rendering 1,967 hectares of land unable to be harvested, the council said.
The most seriously affected crop was rice, with some 8,051 hectares of rice paddies being hit and suffering a 14 percent damage rate — which left an estimated 1,162 hectares of lands unable to be harvested, it said, adding that the cost of the ruined rice crop amounted to about NT$106.9 million.
Other crops that were seriously affected by the rain included watermelon, persimmon, leafy vegetables, papaya and tomatoes, it said.
Vegetable exports to Taipei were reduced by 1,325 tonnes (10.5 percent) yesterday and the average price for the produce was about NT$25 per kilogram (an increase of 5.7 percent), which was considered to be a reasonable increase, the council said.
According to the council’s statistics, the fishing industry incurred estimated losses of NT$83.32 million yesterday, mainly from the damage of 1,625 oysters cultivation racks in Chaiyi County’s Budai Township (布袋).
Other losses caused by the extreme rain included NT$92.38 million in ruined farmland, NT$10.67 million in lost livestock and poultry, NT$3.87 million in forestry losses and NT$1.5 million in damaged fishing equipment.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods