The Taipei City Fire Department yesterday hosted an international search-and-rescue exchange, bringing together disaster relief experts from Taiwan, Japan and South Korea to share their know-how and experience to improve response efforts.
Huang Chien-hua (黃建華), head of the department’s disaster and rescue division, said the Hualien County search-and-rescue team, which spearheaded rescue efforts in the aftermath of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake on Feb. 6, was invited to the forum to outline their approach.
The rescuers discussed how they used the media and social media to release information about suspected missing persons confirm their whereabouts, Huang said.
They then used that information along with police resources and household registration data to determine who might have been trapped in the rubble.
In a statement to the media on Feb. 9, the National Police Agency called the method a tech-based approach, similar to that used in criminal investigations.
The method allowed police to reduce the number of suspected missing people from 183 to seven in just 60 hours following the earthquake.
Experts from Japan discussed their relief efforts in the wake of the Great Hanshin earthquake on Jan. 17, 1995 and the Tohoku earthquake on March 11, 2011.
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS