The AKUT Search and Rescue Association has thanked Taiwanese for their generous donations in the wake of a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Turkey on Jan. 24.
The earthquake, centered near the town of Sivrice in eastern Elazig Province, killed 41 people and injured more than 1,600.
After the earthquake, Taiwanese flooded AKUT with supportive messages and donations, the organization said.
“Of the 7,133 people who donated to the organization via credit card [after the earthquake], more than 60 percent were Taiwanese,” AKUT secretary-general Zeynep Aktosun said in a meeting on Monday.
In addition, one Taiwanese voluntarily translated the donation information into Chinese, which resulted in an “explosion” of donations, she said.
Many of the Taiwanese donors said that they wanted to show their gratitude for AKUT’s assistance in the aftermath of the 921 Earthquake, the organization said.
The 921 Earthquake, which claimed more than 2,400 lives and left tens of thousands of people injured when it struck central Taiwan in 1999, is considered one of the deadliest in the nation’s history.
The day after the 921 Earthquake, AKUT dispatched 17 rescue workers, who saved the life of a Taiwanese woman who had been trapped under the rubble of her collapsed apartment building.
Twenty years later, Taiwanese still remember the work of the organization, AKUT president Recep Salci said.
“Our friendship with Taiwan stretches back to 1999, when there was a disaster in Taiwan,” Salci said in the meeting. “We went to help and became friends. This earthquake [in Turkey] has showed us that they have not forgotten us and are willing to help us. We want to thank all Taiwanese people.”
The organization also expressed thanks to Taiwan in two social media posts on Monday and Thursday last week.
“Thank you, our friends from afar,” the Thursday post says in Chinese and Turkish, next to an image of the Republic of China and Turkish flags side by side.
The Monday post expresses thanks to Taiwanese, the Turkish government, local businesses and individuals who had supported AKUT’s rescue efforts.
When one Turkish commenter asked why Taiwan had been singled out, the organization cited the large number of donations and supportive messages received from Taiwanese.
“The donations are important, of course, but the messages are our greatest motivation,” Aktosun said. “Our volunteers have been moved to tears by them.”
Since the earthquake, AKUT has received donations totaling more than 1 million Turkish Lira (US$166,976), she said.
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