Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Lin Shih-chia (林世嘉) and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday proposed that the nation’s capital be relocated outside the “evacuation zone” in the 50km radius around operational nuclear power plants.
“Of the 211 nuclear power plants operating around the world, there are only six plants that have more than 3 million people living within 30km of them, and two of them are the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Shihmen District (石門) and the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in the same city’s Wanli District (萬里),” Lin Shih-chia said.
If the yet to be completed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮) — also in New Taipei City — goes into operation, then that would bring the number to three, she added.
Photo: CNA
Lin Shih-chia said that Greater Taipei is the political and financial center of Taiwan, and is also where the central government’s offices are located, so if a nuclear disaster occurred at the two operational plants, the officials at the National Rescue Command Center that are meant to direct the nation during an emergency would have to be evacuated too.
“Nuclear safety is national safety,” Lin Chia-lung said, adding that the storage of high-level radioactive waste inside the power plants means that the Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫), which provides most of the water for the Greater Taipei area, is constantly under the threat of contamination from nuclear leaks or accidents.
He said that the nation’s government should take into consideration that after the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in 2011, the Japanese government had decided to designate Osaka as its “backup” capital in the event that a major disaster crippled Tokyo.
The legislators said that if the government wants to continue pursuing its current nuclear policy, then it should consider amending the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Control Act (核子反應器設施管制法) to provide for relocating or planning to relocate the nation’s capital to Greater Taichung, because it is further away from the evacuation zones around the two operational and one under-construction nuclear plants in northern Taiwan and the operational Ma-anshan (馬鞍山) Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County.
Taiwan Environmental Protection Union founder Shih Hsin-min (施信民) said that in both the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine and the Fukushima meltdown, the areas contaminated by radioactive fallout were larger than the officially designated evacuation zones. In addition, while hundreds of thousands of people had to be evacuated in both incidents, if such a disaster occurred in northern Taiwan, the number of evacuees would be in the millions, Shih said.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to