In the immediate wake of Ty-phoon Bilis yesterday morning, rivers were surging dangerously, with the potential of triggering large mudflows in mountainous areas, officials from the Council of Agriculture (COA) said.
In Jenai Township (
In Fengshan village (
COA officials, however, said that people in mountainous areas should be prepared for the possibility of more mudflows.
According to data collected by the COA's 18 mudflow monitoring stations, some communities in mountainous areas are in grave danger, including Fengchiu village (豐丘村) in Nantou County and Tungmen village (銅門村) in Hualien County. COA officials had already evacuated these areas.
To ease the pressure on full reservoirs, the Ministry of Econ-omic Affairs' (MOEA) water resource bureau (WRB) had instructed local district officials to conduct flood discharge operations.
In northern Taiwan, Shihmen Reservoir (
In central Taiwan, the flood discharge operations at Tehchi Reservoir (
Officials from the Taiwan Water Supply Corporation (TWSC) said yesterday that the water supply in central Taiwan might be affected if the turbidity got any worse.
"If the water is too turbid, we might not be able to purify it quickly, and this might force us to begin water rationing," said Li Chun-sheng (
In southern Taiwan, Peiho Reservoir (
In Kaohsiung, officials of TWSC's Seventh District Management Department (
"We can handle the turbidity now and the water supply to the Kaohiusng metropolitan area will not be affected," said a TWSC official.
About 3 million residents of the Kaohsiung metropolitan area were left without water for days after a case of serious pollution caused by the illegal discharge of toxic chemical solvents into the Kaoping River (
Officials from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday urged people to boil tap water three minutes longer than usual to ensure purity because more chlorine might have been added to purify turbid river water.
UPDATED (3:40pm): A suspected gas explosion at a shopping mall in Taichung this morning has killed four people and injured 20 others, as emergency responders continue to investigate. The explosion occurred on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi in Situn District (西屯) at 11:33am. One person was declared dead at the scene, while three people were declared deceased later after receiving emergency treatment. Another 20 people sustained major or minor injuries. The Taichung Fire Bureau said it received a report of the explosion at 11:33am and sent rescuers to respond. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, it said. The National Fire
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‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘LAWFUL USE’: The last time a US warship transited the Taiwan Strait was on Oct. 20 last year, and this week’s transit is the first of US President Donald Trump’s second term Two US military vessels transited the Taiwan Strait from Sunday through early yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, the first such mission since US President Donald Trump took office last month. The two vessels sailed south through the Strait, the ministry said, adding that it closely monitored nearby airspace and waters at the time and observed nothing unusual. The ministry did not name the two vessels, but the US Navy identified them as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the Pathfinder-class survey ship USNS Bowditch. The ships carried out a north-to-south transit from
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