Households in areas where flooding exceeded 50cm due to Typhoon Gaemi are to receive NT$20,000 each in planned relief funding, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday.
Lai announced the subsidies after being briefed about the storm situation during an inspection of severely affected areas in Kaohsiung’s Meinong District (美濃).
In areas where there was flooding, but under 50cm, low-to-middle-income households would receive NT$10,000, Lai added.
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
The money would be drawn from the central government’s budget, Lai said.
He urged the legislature to swiftly approve the funds once it begins a new session in September.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Finance is mulling tax relief for individuals and businesses in areas severely affected by the typhoon, which brought heavy rainfall to central and southern Taiwan before being downgraded to a tropical storm.
Photo: CNA
Duonalindao (多納林道) in Kaohsiung’s Maolin District (茂林) had 1,835mm of accumulated rainfall from Wednesday to noon yesterday, while Chiayi County’s Fencihu Township (奮起湖) had 1,677.5mm, Central Weather Administration (CWA) data showed.
Lai commended the Kaohsiung City Government’s efforts to enhance the city’s flood control system. While accumulated rainfall in the city was comparable to that brought by Typhoon Morakot in 2009, the flooding was less severe, he said.
Morakot caused catastrophic damage in Taiwan, killing at least 681 people, with 18 still missing, a Cabinet report said.
Lai said that additional cash would be provided to compensate for agricultural losses from Gaemi.
He promised to boost financial support for local governments to improve river infrastructure, including water detention facilities, to enhance the nation’s resilience to climate shocks.
The CWA yesterday morning lifted sea and land warnings for Gaemi, but added that heavy rain was likely to persist in many parts of Taiwan.
As of 8am yesterday, the eye of the storm was over China, roughly 200km west of Taiwan’s Lienchiang County, the CWA said.
It was moving at 9kph, down from 17kph, it said.
It had weakened and posed no further threat to Taiwan’s northern waters, or Kinmen and Lienchiang counties, it said.
The agency issued extremely heavy or heavy rain advisories for 15 administrative regions, including Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Miaoli and Pingtung counties, and mountainous areas in Nantou County.
The CWA defines extremely heavy rain as accumulated rainfall of more than 200mm in a day or more than 100mm in three hours. Heavy rain means accumulated rainfall of at least 80mm within a 24-hour period.
Meanwhile, a tropical cloud system has developed east of the Philippines and is expected to move northwest toward Taiwan.
The system is forecast to become a tropical depression and approach Taiwan’s waters on Monday or Tuesday, the CWA said,
It is too early to tell if the system would become a tropical storm, it said, adding that even if it does not, it could still bring rain to the nation.
Additional reporting by Huang Chia-ling
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS