Residents of Lanyu (蘭嶼), also known as Orchid Island, breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as Typhoon Jelawat picked up speed and turned east after quickly passing by the east coast.
Jelawat’s approach had brought strong winds to the outlying island, with gusts reaching level 16 on the Beaufort scale. It did not cause as much damage as last month, when the island was devastated by Typhoon Tembin.
The Central Weather Bureau said this was because Jelawat had only approached the east of Lanyu, blowing northerly winds across the island. When Tembin hit, it blew southerly winds across the island, destroying its harbor, gas station and supermarket because they were facing the wind, the bureau said.
Yen Tzu-yu (顏子矞), an elementary-school teacher in Lanyu whose Facebook photos brought attention to the damage caused by Tembin, said schools and government offices on the island were closed yesterday.
No casualties were reported in other parts of the nation either, according to the Central Emergency Operation Center, but flights to Taitung and Lanyu were canceled all day yesterday.
At 5:30pm yesterday, the center of the typhoon was 340km east of Hualien. It was moving northeast at 28kph. The bureau forecast Jelawat would move to 170km northeast of Naha by 5pm today. Bureau forecaster Lin Hsiu-wen (林秀雯) said the bureau had lifted the sea warning at 8:30pm.
As the typhoon accelerates toward Okinawa, the bureau warned that the storm’s circumfluence and the northeast monsoon could still bring heavy or extremely heavy rainfall to the nation’s northern and northeastern regions today. However, the weather would turn better this afternoon, she said, adding that the dry air that follows the storm would help stabilize the weather in time for the Mid-Autumn Festival tomorrow.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
RESILIENCE: Taiwan plays a key role in semiconductors, energy, information infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, AIT Director Raymond Greene said Taiwan’s continued investment in deterrence and resilience remains vital, especially in uncrewed systems and other emerging technologies, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday. Greene made the remarks at the annual National Strategic Summit on Supply Chain Resilience held by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), a government-backed think tank. As Taiwan last year became the US’ fourth-largest trading partner and supply chain security is becoming more important, cooperation in emerging technologies continues to deepen between the two countries, he said. The US is committed to accelerating innovation, building key infrastructure, strengthening cooperation
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
RSS