Tropical Storm Nangka, which will leave Taiwan today, was expected to do little to ease the threat of drought in northern Taiwan, the Water Resources Agency (WRA) said yesterday.
Nangka, just off southern and eastern counties yesterday, was expected to pass Taiwan today as it moves northeast, Central Weather Bureau officials said.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
"The impending drought in the north, however, remains a threat because little rainfall will be brought by Nangka," WRA Deputy Director Chen Shen-hsien (
In order to limit consumption, water pressure in northern counties, including Hsinchu, Taoyuan and Taipei, is still being reduced at night.
Chen said heavier water consumption due to the spread of SARS over the past two months has increased demands on the Shihmen Dam in Taoyuan County and the Feitsui Reservoir in Taipei County.
Chen said that the water supply for the north could be sustained until the end of the month because the storage level is 100 million cubic meters more than at the same time last year.
Facing the worst drought in the past two decades, Taipei City adopted water restrictions on May 13 last year.
Chen said a meeting by the Ministry of Economic Affairs about handling the impending water shortage will be held on June 17 to review rainfall this month and determine whether stricter conservation measures are needed.
According to the weather bureau, expected relief may come on Thursday with new precipitation.
According to bureau, rainfall last month was disappointing. Forecasters said yesterday that rainfall last month in Taipei was 88.8mm, far less than the normal level of 188mm to 303mm.
In central Taiwan, officials said, last month's rainfall was 100.8mm, less than the normal level of 162mm to 280mm.
In southern Taiwan, rainfall last month was only 13.5mm, which is far less than normal levels ranging from 98mm to 235mm.
WRA officials said yesterday that Nangka might make it possible to channel more water from the Kao-ping River, which divides Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, to the Nanhua Reservoir in Tainan County.
The officials said water levels at the Tsengwen and Wushantou reservoirs in Tainan County are falling due to heavy demand from the agricultural sector for irrigation.
The water accumulations at the two reservoirs yesterday were at their second-lowest levels in the past three decades.
The level at the Tsengwen, the largest reservoir in the country, was 168.84m yesterday, lower than the dead storage level -- the level below which water must be pumped out -- of 171m.
Due to the approach of Nangka, the Council of Agriculture yesterday urged residents in mountainous areas to take precautions in the event of mudslides.
"Although Nangka is just a tropical storm, residents in mountainous areas on the Hengchun Peninsula should check to see whether revetment and escape canals nearby can resist torrential rain," said Wu Hui-lung (
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS