Tuesday night’s earthquake has damaged 53 schools at an estimated cost of more than NT$15 million (US$512,470), the Ministry of Education said yesterday.
Of the 53 schools, 23 are in Hualien County and seven are in Kaohsiung, while four each were damaged in Miaoli County, Taipei and Tainan, Department of Student Affairs and Special Education official Chen Tsung-chih (陳宗志) said.
Hualien County’s Mingyi Elementary School suffered the most severe damage, estimated at NT$7 million, Chen said.
Photo: CNA
The earthquake has left the school with torn water pipes, cracked ditches, broken tiles and a malfunctioning overhead door, the Hualien County Department of Education said.
Hualien County’s Beichang Elementary School, where the ministry estimates losses to total NT$3 million, has fissured pillars and deep cracks in the building’s expansion joints, the department said.
The loss for schools in Hualien County — estimated at NT$13 million — is the highest, followed by Kaohsiung at NT$1.4 million and Hsinchu at NT$180,000, Chen said.
So far, only one student has been confirmed injured, the ministry said, adding that the Huagang Junior High School student in Hualien County scraped their left leg, but has received medical treatment and returned home at 2am yesterday.
Students at elementary, junior and senior-high schools across Taiwan are on winter break. The new semester is scheduled to begin on Feb. 21.
Meanwhile, 70 cellphone base stations were damaged, of which 24 had been repaired as of press time last night, the National Communications Commission said.
The damaged base stations belong to five major telecom carriers, with a majority owned by Taiwan Mobile, Far EasTone Telecommunications and Chunghwa Telecom, commission spokesperson Weng Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said.
Most of the base stations went offline because of power outages, Weng said, adding that they can be repaired after the power supply is restored.
In addition to telecom signals, 732 households in Hualien reported cable TV disruptions, Weng said, adding that the cable system operator was told to repair it as soon as possible.
The nation’s emergency alert system functioned well on Tuesday night, as many people reported that their cellphones sounded an alarm as the earthquake hit, the commission said.
According to the commission, the earthquake happened at 11:50pm on Tuesday. The Central Weather Bureau sent a presidential alert to the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction’s warning system at 11:51:02.505pm, which was disseminated by telecom carriers at 11:51:03.041pm.
On average, it took 4G telecom service users about five seconds to receive the alert, whereas 3G users received the message after about 10 seconds, the commission said.
Additional reporting by CNA
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
RSS