Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls.
As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation.
A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it said.
Photo courtesy of a reader
Former Weather Forecast Center director Daniel Wu (吳德榮), who is now an adjunct associate professor of atmospheric sciences at National Central University, said there is also an increased chance of lightning, strong winds and sudden downpours this week.
It started raining yesterday afternoon in northern areas of Hualien County, resulting in landslides that blocked the railway line between Chongde (崇德) and Heren (和仁), interrupting train services on the North-Link Line (北迴線), Taiwan Railway Corp said.
A slope collapse and rockfalls have blocked off both directions of railway tracks between Heren and Chongde, and rocks and debris are still falling down from the slopes of Provincial Highway No. 9 above the railway. Therefore excavators cannot move into the area and the blocked section would not be open as of late last night, it said.
Photo: screen grab from the Central Weather Administration’s Web site
Starting at 4pm yesterday, train services from Taipei to Hualien and Taitung cities were canceled and express trains northbound from Taitung would terminate in Hualien City, it said.
Taiwan Railway Corp urged passengers to check its Web site, call its 24-hour service at (02) 2191-0096 or the toll-free line at 0800-765-888 for the latest information.
Travelers with tickets that were not used due to the slope collapse can apply for a refund within the next year, it added.
Meanwhile, more than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession late yesterday afternoon, continuing the unsettling roller-coaster ride Hualien County residents have been on since a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit the county on April 3.
The biggest of the series, a magnitude 5.5 quake that hit at 5:08pm yesterday, occurred 26.8km south-southwest of Hualien County Hall at a depth of 10km, the Central Weather Administration said.
A magnitude 4.4 quake centered in Shoufeng Township (壽豐) occurred a minute later at a depth of 9.5km, the agency said.
It was followed by earthquakes of magnitudes 5.3, 4.9 and 4.9 at 5:12pm, 5:15pm and 5:17pm, again centered in the township, the agency added.
They were all relatively shallow, occurring at depths of 10km, 5.4km and 2.8km respectively.
Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) said the series of shallow quakes were aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake.
Wu said that the frequency and number of aftershocks have generally abated, despite yesterday’s activity, but he expects more aftershocks, mostly of magnitude 3 and occasionally magnitude 4.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying