The government should establish an alert mechanism for rogue waves because they have caused a series of deaths and injuries, a think tank of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said in a report.
Rogue waves, also called “crazy dog waves” (瘋狗浪) by Taiwanese, usually appear between June and November each year, the Institute of Transportation said in the report.
Several factors that contribute to the occurrence of rogue waves have been identified, including the topography in certain parts of the ocean, wave-current interactions and convergence of groups of waves, the report said.
The rapid grouping and convergence of swells are also closely related to the occurrence of rogue waves, it added.
The institute said that it analyzed five fatal accidents involving rogue waves, which occurred in Pingtung County’s Mobitou Park (貓鼻頭), Keelung’s Heping Island (和平島), Bitoujiao Park (鼻頭角) along the northeast coast and Yilan County’s Nanao (南澳).
Rogue waves in all five cases occurred because of swells caused by typhoons, it said.
Among the five cases, three happened after the Central Weather Bureau had issued a typhoon alert, the institute said.
Examining the evolution of swells caused by typhoons over the years, the institute said the swells have the potential to become rogue waves when they accumulate at the Port of Suao or Port of Hualien.
Specifically, the peak period of swells in this stage abruptly jumps from less than 10 seconds to larger than 12 seconds, the institute said, adding that wave height gradually rises to exceed 1.5m.
Swells enter maturation if the peak period of the swells continues to last more than 12 seconds for about 10 hours after they pass the accumulating stage.
Wave heights can surpass 2.5m, the institute said.
Swells in the maturation stage can easily trigger the occurrence of rogue waves, which pose the most serious threat, it said.
Although the nation has yet to develop the technology to accurately forecast when and where rogue waves would happen, the government could still reduce the possibility of fatalities by formulating guidelines governing the issuance of rogue wave alerts, it said.
When a typhoon forms nearby, the public should be warned about rogue waves, the institute said, adding that the government should calculate when the swells caused by the typhoon would arrive by taking into account the typhoon’s distance from the east coast and that swells travel at an average distance of 800km a day.
The nation should issue a rogue wave alert if swells are grouping and accumulating, and lift it when the peak period drops below 10 seconds and wave height falls below 1.5m, it said.
Between the grouping and accumulating stage and maturation, the government has about 10 hours to prevent disasters from happening, it added.
The last fatal accident involving rogue waves happened on Sept. 2 last year in Nanao, when three people were killed after being swept away.
Within two hours of that accident, two other people fell into the sea because of rogue waves at Nanao Beach and Neipi Beach in Suao.
The sea had been affected by swells caused by Typhoon Jebi, which was moving toward Japan.
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
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