Residents in Taipei County's Rueifang (瑞芳) and Sijhih (汐止) Townships will no longer suffer from flooding now that the Yuanshanzih Sluiceway (員山子分洪道) is completed, the Cabinet's Water Resources Agency said yesterday. The agency made the confident assessment after the sluiceway performed well through two typhoons -- Haitang and Matsa.
"The sluiceway worked, and helped distribute rainfall during the two recent typhoons' pummeling of northern Taiwan," said Joses Wu (吳約西), secretary-general of the agency. "So we can announce the end of Rueifang and Hsichih residents' nightmare."
Rueifang and Hsichih Townships have been notorious for constant flooding every time typhoons tore through the areas in the past few years, due to the extraordinary curves of the Keelung River.
In addition to dredging and straightening the river, the agency also built the Yuanshanzih Sluiceway to help redirect run-off to the sea.
The construction began in June 2002 and was completed this June. The sluiceway, which cost NT$6.3 billion (US$198 million), had its first challenge when Typhoon Haitang touched down on July 18.
On Friday, Typhoon Matsa hit the nation and became the sluiceway's second challenge. The construction did help prevent flooding and residents' typical battle with the problem was averted.
According to Wu, under normal conditions the sluiceway helps filter out mud from the Keelung River. If the water level in the river hits a high 63m, sluicegates automatically open and redirect water to the sea.
"The sluiceway actually helped decrease by more than 1.5m the depth of the waters of the Keelung River in the Rueifang and Hsichih areas," Wu said. "So we should not be worried about being flooded again in the future."
In addition to protecting the nearly 2 million residents in the Taipei metropolitan area, the Yuanshanzih Sluiceway has been a focus of media coverage.
On Oct. 25 last year, when Typhoon Nock-Ten was pounding northern Taiwan, a local TV photojournalist drowned at the sluiceway's construction site during a flashflood while he was waiting along with other reporters to cover former premier Yu Shyi-kun's visit to the site.
Prosecutors' investigation showed that the sudden floods that drowned the photojournalist came from the sluiceway, which began to distribute and re-direct rainwater toward the group of journalists.
The government has paid a total of NT$570 million as compensation to Rueifang fishermen for losses due to the completion of the sluiceway's construction.
According to the Rueifang Fishery Council, the turbid water from the sluiceway now floods into their old fishing grounds, reducing fish stocks in the area and hurting their business.
After the fishermen complained to the government, the Cabinet's Fisheries Administration paid compensation to resolve the dispute.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
RSS