The Central Weather Bureau yesterday issued a special warning about low temperatures, heavy rain and strong winds as a cold front shrouded the nation in cold, moist air.
Temperatures of less than 10˚C have been recorded, the bureau said, adding that most areas also experienced strong winds yesterday.
The weather warnings were issued as the strongest cold snap to hit Taiwan in 10 years made its impact felt early yesterday.
Photo: courtesy of the Taoyuan Department of Tourism
At 5:30am a low of 11.7˚C was recorded in Taipei and 1.3˚C on Yushan (玉山).
The cold front is likely to last until Tuesday, the bureau said.
Snow is rarely seen in the nation except on the highest mountains of central and southern Taiwan. With the weather bureau warning of an strong cold front many people began to head for Hehuanshan (合歡山) and other mountains to wait for the expected snow.
Photo: CNA
Early yesterday, up to 350 vehicles passed through a checkpoint close to Hehuanshan, blocking one lane of the highway. The checkpoint was set up to prevent vehicles from going further up the mountain during the night for safety reasons.
The Health Promotion Administration yesterday released tips to prevent cardiovascular illness triggered by the cold weather. The administration said low temperatures can increase blood viscosity, induce vasoconstriction (where the walls of blood vessels narrow and constrict) and increase the risks of intravascular clotting, as well as the likeliness of triggering coronary heart disease.
People with the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids and high blood sugar — should remember to take prescribed medication, avoid overeating and severe emotional fluctuations, drink warm water and eat food high in natural fiber to help prevent constipation, it said.
People with the “three highs” are one-and-a-half times more likely to develop heart disease over a five-year period, administration official Chia Shu-li (賈淑麗) said, adding that it is important for the elderly and people with heart disease to keep themselves warm at all times.
She said they should avoid going outdoors for exercise early in the morning when the temperature is extremely low, prepare warm clothes besides their bed before going to sleep so that they can wear them as soon as possible when they get up the next morning.
People who use hot springs should avoid staying in the water for more than 15 minutes to prevent acute cardiovascular events, the administration said, adding that people should also remember to stand up slowly when getting out of hot springs and that people with chronic cardiovascular disease should be accompanied.
The administration said that people with diabetes, hypertension or high cholesterol should keep the water temperature below 40˚C and avoid using hot springs within two hours of eating a large meal or drinking alcohol.
If a person feels sudden chest pain, chest tightness, difficulty breathing or speaking, or experiences numbness or paralysis in the face, legs or arms, he or she should see a doctor immediately, the administration said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching