The government has designated Sept. 21 as National Disaster Prevention Day. On that day, nationwide earthquake and tsunami drills were conducted to help people prepare for emergencies.
Earthquake drills were held on campuses, and some drills tested smoke detection systems, and fire reporting and alarm systems.
During an earthquake, there could be fires, landslides, or tsunamis. The authorities should consider including simulations of landslides in national disaster drills. The probability of landslides is higher than that of earthquakes.
To carry out landslide drills, students would have to walk out of their classrooms to the safe areas in their communities.
Many schools are actively involved in disaster prevention and have come up with various innovative disaster prevention measures. However, they are not as active in carrying out landslide drills with the local community.
Although some suburban communities have no problem in conducting disaster drills, many drills cannot be sustained, because of the aging population and young people’s unwillingness to take part in them.
The Water Resources Agency and the Agency of Rural Development and Soil and Water Conservation said they have made substantial progress in promoting disaster prevention to communities. However, most of those who participate are elderly people.
This is because there are not many schools providing a curriculum related to community disaster prevention.
A teacher from Nantou County responsible for disaster prevention education said there is no policy incentive for schools to bring students to disaster prevention communities, because it is not one of the competencies that is evaluated as part of the Ministry of Education’s “108 curriculum.”
Although the 108 curriculum includes environmental education, it does not encourage students to leave the classroom and connect with the local community.
Policy incentives are the key to connecting students with the community, whose destiny they would share in the event of a natural disaster. Students should actively collaborate with their community in environmental education and disaster prevention. Otherwise, they disconnect from each other.
Yang Yung-nane is a professor of political science at National Cheng Kung University and an adviser to the Tainan City Government’s disaster prevention advisory committee.
Translated by Fion Khan
Chinese actor Alan Yu (于朦朧) died after allegedly falling from a building in Beijing on Sept. 11. The actor’s mysterious death was tightly censored on Chinese social media, with discussions and doubts about the incident quickly erased. Even Hong Kong artist Daniel Chan’s (陳曉東) post questioning the truth about the case was automatically deleted, sparking concern among overseas Chinese-speaking communities about the dark culture and severe censorship in China’s entertainment industry. Yu had been under house arrest for days, and forced to drink with the rich and powerful before he died, reports said. He lost his life in this vicious
A recent trio of opinion articles in this newspaper reflects the growing anxiety surrounding Washington’s reported request for Taiwan to shift up to 50 percent of its semiconductor production abroad — a process likely to take 10 years, even under the most serious and coordinated effort. Simon H. Tang (湯先鈍) issued a sharp warning (“US trade threatens silicon shield,” Oct. 4, page 8), calling the move a threat to Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” which he argues deters aggression by making Taiwan indispensable. On the same day, Hsiao Hsi-huei (蕭錫惠) (“Responding to US semiconductor policy shift,” Oct. 4, page 8) focused on
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article will help readers avoid repeating mistakes by examining four examples from the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the Republic of China (ROC) forces that involved two city sieges and two island invasions. The city sieges compared are Changchun (May to October 1948) and Beiping (November 1948 to January 1949, renamed Beijing after its capture), and attempts to invade Kinmen (October 1949) and Hainan (April 1950). Comparing and contrasting these examples, we can learn how Taiwan may prevent a war with
In South Korea, the medical cosmetic industry is fiercely competitive and prices are low, attracting beauty enthusiasts from Taiwan. However, basic medical risks are often overlooked. While sharing a meal with friends recently, I heard one mention that his daughter would be going to South Korea for a cosmetic skincare procedure. I felt a twinge of unease at the time, but seeing as it was just a casual conversation among friends, I simply reminded him to prioritize safety. I never thought that, not long after, I would actually encounter a patient in my clinic with a similar situation. She had
RSS