Taipei’s and New Taipei City’s disaster evacuation procedures should be more closely integrated, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
Both cities’ hospitals were flooded with patients following an inferno at the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) water park in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里) on Saturday, which injured almost 500 people.
Although Taipei and New Taipei City are a single metropolitan area, we still have two separate administrative systems,” Ko said, adding that many seriously injured victims had been forced to transfer hospitals after they were not sent to the appropriate hospitals in the first instance.
Photo: Tu Chu-min, Taipei Times
Taipei sent 144 ambulances to assist New Taipei City’s disaster response.
Former National Taiwan University Hospital’s Department of Traumatology director Ko on Sunday called for injury reporting to be integrated and digitized across the nation to improve efficiency and coordination across administrative boundaries.
He also suggested that ambulances be provided with tablet computers to enable injuries to be reported in real time instead of waiting until patients arrive at hospitals.
Ko said Taipei would wait for one month before deciding on any specific emergency response reforms, adding that plans for treating injuries after a major natural disaster — such as an earthquake — would also be reviewed.
Following a meeting with New Taipei City Deputy Mayor Kao Chung-cheng (高宗正), Taipei Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) said that the cities would explore ways of integrating their respective emergency operations centers to unify ambulance dispatches and the hospitals to which patients are evacuated.
He added that the Taipei City Government was reviewing how to integrate resources and manpower from the armed forces and national agencies in the event of a natural disaster.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
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BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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