WEATHER
Year’s hottest day in Taipei
The temperature in Taipei yesterday rose to 36.1?C, the highest the city has seen so far this year, the Central Weather Bureau said. The high was recorded at 2:14pm. It is not uncommon to see such high temperatures in Taipei in May, the bureau said, adding that the record high for the month is 37.7?C, set in 1991, followed by 37.2?C in 2007. As of 3:50pm, the mercury hit annual highs in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), Keelung and Yilan County’s Suao Township (蘇澳) surging to 34.7?C, 34.5?C and 32.8?C respectively. The bureau said that the weather nationwide is likely to stay sunny to cloudy for the first half of the day with thunderstorms in the afternoon until Tuesday next week. The weather is likely to turn unstable on Wednesday and Thursday, it said, adding that temperatures are expected to drop to about 30?C.
EARTHQUAKES
Mobile alerts for 4G users
Mobile phone users in the nation as of this week, are to be sent alerts whenever a strong earthquake strikes. Earthquake information will be automatically sent to 4G mobile phone users living in areas affected by earthquakes. A warning message is to be sent if the quake is a magnitude 5 or more and has an intensity of 5 or greater, the Executive Yuan said. The alert system was launched by the National Communications Commission to help people be aware of seismic information as quickly as possible so that they can take the necessary precautions and evacuation measures, the Executive Yuan said. Upon receiving an alert, the mobile phone will vibrate and make a sound, the Executive Yuan said. It added that mobile phone alerts about mudslides, road and bridge closures and other disasters are also set to begin before July.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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