The Cabinet speeded up the task of dealing with an oil spill off southern Taiwan, vowing that the affected regions would be cleared of pollution within one month.
The oil spill occurred on Jan. 14, when a Greek-registered ship with mechanical problems ran into submerged reefs near Kenting National Park.
PHOTO: AFP
The captain and the 22 crew members were rescued immediately by the Coast Guard. Shortly afterwards, some 1,200 tonnes of heavy oil and diesel fuel began to disperse from the sinking ship, 800 meters east off Olianpi's Lungpan Natural Park (
Oil was soon floating toward Lungkeng Ecological Reservation Area (
Under the Marine Pollution Prevention Law, which went into effect last November, the Cabinet has established a task force to handle the worst marine oil spill in Taiwan since 1977. The first meeting of the task force, convened by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), was yesterday.
EPA officials said that they had coordinated with several Cabinet-level agencies and ministries, including the ministries of the interior, transportation, foreign affairs and national defense and the Council of Agriculture and the Coast Guard Administration.
According to an official, EPA Water Quality Protection (水保處), a company from Singapore, had pumped 230 tonnes of oil from the water's surface and local workers have removed 50 tonnes of oil from the area's reefs.
In addition, the EPA is dealing with another headache -- removing the 200 tonnes of oil that remains on the ship. Since the spill, the EPA has been criticized by local residents and legislators for reacting too slowly.
Marine environmentalists say the government reacted too slowly because the spill had seriously damaged coastal environment. Fishermen complained that fish, shrimp, clams and seaweed might not be edible in the next decade.
EPA and CPA officials will make investigations at Lungkeng in the next few days.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS