A foreign man was found drowned on the beach of a Kenting resort early last Saturday morning in the midst of a long weekend of partying.
The man was found on the sand at Long Beach (
According to Hengchun police, who are still investigating the case, the man was camping at another beach with several friends.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
On Friday night, he attended the Moonlight Party with his girlfriend. But his girlfriend returned to their camp site alone, leaving him at the seaside rave.
Police would not reveal the man's identity nor his nationality.
Organizers of the Moonlight Party, a Taipei group called Rock Candy, said they were not aware of the details of the accident.
They had eight life guards on duty and had taken every possible precaution against such an accident, including an NT$10 million accident insurance policy, they said.
In a separate incident, police raided a second party, sponsored by the Taipei group Dreamfield, hauling in 110 party-goers for drug tests and possession of drugs including opium, ecstasy and marijuana.
The raid was orchestrated by Taiwan's National Police Administration, rather than local authorities, and several party-goers spoke of the use of undercover agents, though that could not be confirmed.
Last Friday was Tomb-Sweeping Day, a national holiday. In recent years, crowds have flooded Kenting and the rest of Taiwan's southern peninsula during the long weekend, which generally heralds the arrival of summer beach weather.
Hengchun Police estimated that well over 10,000 flocked to the area last weekend.
Accounting for a significant portion of the influx were five major outdoor parties held within one or two kilometers of the entrance to the Kenting National Park.
In addition to the Moonlight Party and the Dreamfield-sponsored rave, there was also a third electronic music party, the four-day Spring Scream rock festival, and an event sponsored by the Kaohsiung bar DNA.
Founded in 1996, Spring Scream is the longest running and best known of the events, though it has never been associated with any accidents resulting in death or serious injury.
Over the weekend, it attracted around 3,000 people and passed without incident.
The other events are all recent additions to the Tomb-Sweeping Day long weekend. The Moonlight party was first held last year, while the other parties were added this year.
Local police also reported an unusually high number of traffic accidents over the weekend, though they said no deaths or critical injuries resulted.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
RSS