More than 73 percent of New Taipei City (新北市) residents support halting construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.
DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) and the party’s New Taipei City headquarters branch director Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) yesterday revealed a poll showing that only 11.7 percent of the residents polled supported continuing construction at the plant.
In terms of political party affiliation, 92.6 percent of DPP supporters wanted the construction of the power plant to cease, while 58.9 percent of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supporters wanted a halt to construction. Meanwhile, 72.4 percent of the politically neutral individuals taking the poll were also in favor of halting construction on the power plant.
On the issue of nuclear energy in general, 68.9 percent of New Taipei City residents polled were against the use of nuclear power, while only 15.5 percent of respondents supported it.
In addition, the poll showed that 74.5 percent of New Taipei City residents had no confidence in the safety of the power plant, as opposed to 14.6 percent who were confident the power plant would be safe.
The poll found 71.3 percent of residents said they would attend the referendum on the nuclear power plant issue, while 20.3 stated their intent not to attend. New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) evasive stance on the issue satisfied only 26.5 percent of New Taipei residents, while 42.3 percent were dissatisfied.
Pointing to a poll commissioned by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) last week in which 71 percent of Taipei residents said they would vote in the referendum, 66 percent of whom were against continued construction of the power plant and only 18 percent supported continued construction, Lo said that Chu was the first special municipality mayor to talk about the issue, but had only said the “issue should be decided by a referendum.”
Lo said that with more than 70 percent of New Taipei City residents feeling the power plant is unsafe, and 42 percent dissatisfied with Chu’s stance on the issue, Chu should step up and make his stance clear.
The poll collected random samples from New Taipei City’s 29 administrative districts from Thursday through Saturday. Individuals who participated in the poll were 20 years old or older, yielding 1,079 valid responses, with a margin of error of 3.298 percentage points.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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