Taiwan is to test a tsunami alarm in areas potentially at risk of tsunamis around the country on National Disaster Prevention Day on Sept. 19, the Executive Yuan said yesterday.
The new tsunami warning system is to be set off to familiarize the public with how it works on a day when the government hopes to raise public awareness of disaster prevention, the Executive Yuan said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Vice Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said at meeting yesterday to prepare for the approaching Typhoon Matmo that civilian organizations have helped the government mount rescue and relief efforts, showing that they play a key role in disaster prevention.
He urged the Ministry of the Interior to continue to register the volunteer groups and to improve their training so that they can take on an even greater role in responding to disasters.
Mao also said that the dissemination of disaster information should be done in the simplest, clearest and most understandable way.
Separately yesterday, the military said it has opened an emergency center and mobilized thousands of troops to be ready for disaster-relief operations after a sea warning was issued yesterday afternoon for Typhoon Matmo.
The Central Weather Bureau said a land warning is expected in the early hours of today, and warned of heavy rains in central and northern regions starting later today, before the storm makes landfall in Yilan or Hualien counties early tomorrow.
More than 47,000 troops have been placed on standby to provide relief and rescue assistance as needed, along with 22 helicopters, one transport plane, six AAV-7 amphibious assault vehicles and four V-150 Commando armored cars ready for deployment, the Ministry of National Defense said.
The military will continue closely following the situation to provide timely relief assistance, it said.
As of 8:30pm yesterday, the storm was centered 600km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), the southernmost tip of the nation, moving north-northwest at a speed of 23kph.
Matmo, expected to be the first typhoon to directly hit Taiwan this year, was packing sustained winds of 126kph, with gusts reaching 162kph, the weather bureau said.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
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
RSS