As the turbidity of Taipei’s water sources yesterday rose under the influence of heavy rain brought by Typhoon Megi, the Taipei Water Department said it has turned off water supplies to the greater Taipei area to prevent murky tap water from being supplied, affecting about 190,000 homes.
The department provides water to 3.94 million people in Taipei and parts of New Taipei City.
Taipei Water Department Commissioner Chen Chin-hsiang (陳錦祥) said that upstream turbidity levels of the Sindian River (新店溪), from which the department’s water purification plants tap water, underwent a surge due to unexpectedly heavy precipitation.
Photo: CNA
Upstream turbidity levels of the river were 1,800 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) at 12:30pm yesterday, but soared past 12,000 NTU at 1:30pm and at one point reached 12,900 NTU, prompting the department to completely suspend the supply of water to Taipei, as well as New Taipei City’s Sanchong (三重), Jhonghe (中和), Yonghe (永和), Sindian (新店) and Sijhih (汐止) districts at 4pm.
Chen said that an estimated 190,000 households in areas closest to the end of water pipelines were affected by the suspension, including homes in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), in the mountainous areas of Neihu District (內湖) and those in the Tianmu (天母) and Muzha (木柵) areas.
Sindian, Jhonghe, Yonghe and Sijhih residents were also among the first to be affected by the water stoppage, he said.
Homes that suffered water supply interruptions were mostly one-story buildings or buildings without water storage tanks, he said.
If heavy rainfall persists, people living in buildings with water storage tanks are expected to run out of tap water at between 4am and 4pm today, he said.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
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
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