The average air quality in Taiwan has become the worst among the four “East Asian Tigers” — Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea — and even worse than some cities in China, the Taiwan Healthy Air Action Alliance and legislators said yesterday.
Alliance founder and Changhua Christian Hospital gynecologist Yeh Guang-peng (葉光芃) said he and the Changhua Medical Alliance for Public Affairs had analyzed air quality reports published by the WHO, and discovered that the annual average of PM10 (fine particles in the air smaller than 10 micrometers in size) concentration in Taiwan was as high as 54 micrograms per cubic meter.
He said the annual average PM10 level of Taiwan was about two times that of Austria and Singapore, the highest among the East Asian Tigers and even higher than some cities in Southeast Asia and China.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Furthermore, Yeh said the PM10 annual average in Taipei — 47.1 micrograms per cubic meter, ranked only 1,089 among 1,600 cities around the world, showing that the nation’s air quality still has much room for improvement.
Comparing that level with a few cities in China, he said the PM10 levels in Shenzhen, Xiamen and Quanzhou were better than those in Chiayi and Greater Kaohsiung; and the air quality in Shanghai was better than Greater Kaohsiung’s Fongshan District (鳳山) and Greater Tainan’s Sinying District (新營).
The alliance said while the environmental and health agencies in other countries are working together to tackle air pollution problems, the Ministry of Health and Welfare seemed to be too passive in dealing with the health risks from serious air pollution.
Lin Chen-su (林真夙), a section chief at the ministry’s Health Promotion Administration, said the agency would work to improve health education to inform the public about air pollution and related health risks, and also to suggest prevention measures.
The Environmental Protection Administration said that the average PM10 levels in the nation have already decreased greatly over the past years, but sometimes high PM10 levels result from certain geographical and climate conditions, such as dust near river banks in central and southern Taiwan, but that it will continue to make efforts to reduce air pollution.
Changhua Medical Alliance for Public Affairs consultant Yang Joe-ming (楊澤民) said children, elderly people and people suffering from asthma or cardiovascular disease are more sensitive to air pollutants and should wear face masks when commuting to reduce harmful exposure.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS