The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday said a total of 560 victims of the Feb. 6 earthquake have been taken to hospitals for emergency treatment, with 51 still hospitalized, including nine in intensive care units.
Statistics from the ministry’s emergency medical services system showed that 560 people — 508 in Tainan, 36 in Kaohsiung and the rest in other cities and counties — were taken to hospitals for emergency treatment after the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that collapsed the Weiguan Jinlong complex in Tainan.
A medical station established at National Cheng Kung University Hospital on Feb. 6 by a regional emergency operations center was shut down at 10:45am yesterday after operating for 192 hours in support of search-and-rescue teams at the Weiguan Jinlong disaster site in Tainan’s Yongkang District (永康), the ministry said.
Another medical station established at the disaster site by the Chimei Foundation Medical Center was closed at 7pm on Saturday after the body of the last missing Weiguan Jinlong resident was recovered, it added.
National Cheng Kung University Hospital plans to send mental health specialists to funeral homes today to provide support for bereaved families, the ministry said, adding that other hospitals would also volunteer medical personnel to disaster areas to provide support to those in need.
The ministry said it has asked the Tainan City Government to provide shelter, relief funds and consolation money to victims of the disaster as soon as possible, as well as designate social workers to assist each household affected.
As of 6am yesterday, 13 temporary shelters had been established in Tainan to take in 109 people and social workers had been mobilized to provide assistance at disaster areas, funeral homes, shelters and hospitals, the ministry said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift