A nuclear safety drill is to be held from Monday to Wednesday next week at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County, focusing on the potential effects of an earthquake, Atomic Energy Council Deputy Minister Liu Wen-chung (劉文忠) said on Monday.
The council’s annual safety drills alternate between the three operating nuclear power plants, with scenarios designed around the geographic location of each facility, Liu said.
The exercises, which are to be held in collaboration with the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, would include the evacuation of area residents by boat from Houbihu (後壁湖), Pingtung’s largest fishing harbor, which is near the plant, Liu said.
It would be the first time a maritime evacuation is conducted as part of the annual drills, council official Liao Chia-chun (廖家群) said.
Although the effects of an earthquake have always been part of the drill scenarios, this year’s exercises would focus on a disaster analysis by the center that includes the simulated collapse of buildings and roads, Liao said.
Local government agencies, the Coast Guard Administration, the military and members of the public would take part in the drill, the council said.
Foreign dignitaries as well as nuclear disaster experts from the US and Japan have been invited to observe the exercises, it added.
On Tuesday, residents in or around the area are to be alerted via the government’s cellphone-based disaster warning system, Liao said.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS