One person died and nine were injured after Severe Tropical Storm Bailu made landfall in Pingtung County on Saturday, the Central Emergency Operation Center said yesterday.
An 18-year-old drove a motorcycle into a fallen tree in Tainan at 11:49pm on Saturday and died after branches punctured his chest, the center said.
Two other people — a 21-year-old woman on a scooter and a 32-year-old man on a motorcycle — were injured in Tainan after driving into trees that had fallen into the street.
Photo: CNA
In Nantou County’s Yuchih Township (魚池), a 73-year-old man and a 48-year-old woman were hurt when trees fell on them.
Meanwhile, five people were injured in Taitung County: three in Taitung City, one on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and one in Daren Township (達仁), the center’s statistics showed.
About 117,500 households lost power at one point, the center said, adding that power was expected to be restored by 5pm yesterday to the 1,328 households in Taitung, Hualien, Pingtung and Chiayi counties that still did not have power.
The center also said that 3,436 people were forced to evacuate because of the storm, adding that 252 of them remained in shelters.
The Central Weather Bureau lifted the land warning for the storm at 8:30am and lifted the sea warning for it at 11:30am.
The storm reached China’s Fujian Province at 7am and was about weaken to a tropical depression, the bureau said.
Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co said the average retail price for vegetables was NT$42.2 (US$1.34) per kilogram yesterday, slightly down from the average price of NT$43.7 per kilogram on Friday last week, the day before the storm arrived.
Although the average retail price for vegetables dropped at one point, it rebounded again when fewer vegetables arrived at the market yesterday and because the retail market is closed on Mondays.
Only 1,220 tonnes of vegetables arrived at the market yesterday, 20 percent less than on Saturday, the company said.
The largest retail price increase was seen in the cabbages that are harvested in mountainous areas. Their price rose from NT$26.5 per kilogram to NT$36.1 per kilogram.
Baby bok choy cost NT$85.3 per kilogram, up 33 percent compared with Saturday.
The retail price for Chinese amaranth also rose 26 percent to NT$57.8 per kilogram, while cucumber and corn prices dropped 18.2 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
The storm damaged NT$25.26 million worth of crops, while NT$215,000 in damage was done to agricultural facilities, Council of Agriculture statistics showed.
Taitung County sustained the most agricultural losses, followed by Hualien and Pingtung counties, and Kaohsiung, the council said.
Banana crops were the most severely hit, with NT$14.61 million in damage, the council said, adding that sugar apples, papayas, watermelons and corn were the next-most affected crops.
The Ministry of Education said that 11 secondary and primary schools reported damage to their facilities.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods