Wed, Aug 24, 2016 page4

• Beitou crushed by ‘Pokemon’ crowd

  ‘END OF THE WORLD’: With Beitou Park becoming the top gathering place in the north for gamers, police are struggling to cope with the crowds amassing in the area

  • By Jason Pan / Staff reporter
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  Police officers in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) said they are having difficulty coping with the massive crowds congregating on streets and in public parks to play the augmented-reality game Pokemon Go, and plan to ask the gaming company to reduce the number of “PokeStops” around Beitou Park (北投公園) to get a handle on the problem.

  Beitou Police Precinct Deputy Chief Wang Cheng-ting (王正廷) said the office has set up several mobile patrol units composed of police officers, police volunteers and firefighters to provide rapid response in managing crowds and easing traffic congestion.

  “Due to the flood of people gathering to play Pokemon Go around Beitou Park, we have gridlock in the area, with the narrow streets and roads being crowded with people,” Wang said, adding that police have been busy issuing tickets to illegally parked cars and motorcycles.

  

  Pokemon Go players mill around a street near Beitou Park in Taipei’s Beitou District on Friday.

  Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times

  “To alleviate these problems, we will formally request the Pokemon Go gaming company in Taiwan to cut the number of PokeStops around Beitou Park. We believe this is the best way to reduce the crowd coming here to catch Pokemon creatures,” he added.

  Wang said police have also downloaded the “Go Radar” app — which presents updated information on the appearance and location of in-game creatures, which often leads to the phenomenon of a huge crowd rushing in the same direction — to pinpoint possible trouble spots.

  Beitou Park is well-known as popular destination for local and foreign tourists with its natural hotsprings, Japanese-era bathhouses, historical sites and other cultural attractions.

  Local media reports say Beitou Park has become the top place in northern Taiwan for gamers to catch rare Pokemon creatures, such as Dragonite, Vaporeon and Snorlax, and has become a hotspot for people to gather from daytime to nighttime, with huge crowds overwhelming the place in the past two weekends.

  A video of the unusual phenomenon taking place in Beitou has made international headlines, with the Time.com news Web site posting a report titled, “Pokemon Go may have just shown us what the end of the world looks like.”

  The report said the thousands of people swarming a Taiwanese intersection was reminiscent of a scene from a science-fiction movie of hordes of zombies looking for their victims.

  The video showed gamers, mobile phones in hand, surging together on congested streets in front of Beitou Park, at the intersection of Guangming Road and Zhongshan Road, rushing past cars and buses, stopping traffic, and moving toward the direction of Xinbeitou MRT Station.

  “A surreal video that purports to show thousands of Pokemon Go players in Taiwan stampeding after a Snorlax — a relatively rare creature in the Pokemon pantheon — could, if confirmed, be indicative of just how all-consuming the smartphone game has become,” the report said.

  Local residents have complained that since the Pokemon Go madness caught on about one-and-a-half weeks ago, it has led to numerous headaches and problems, with some unable to sleep due to the loud racket gamers made late at night, while others pointed to the mountains of trash piling up inside the park.

  Environmental and cultural preservation groups said they fear the congregation of massive crowds would damage the grass lawns and degrade public facilities and historic sites in the area, which would scare off foreign tourists, and affect the area’s hot springs and hospitality businesses.

  The Beitou Branch of Taipei Public Library has put up signs inside and outside the facility to remind the public that the library is for reading books, and not for catching imaginary creatures, in an effort to discourage gamers from entering the library to play the mobile phone app.
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