Heavy downpours brought by a plum rain front and approaching Tropical Storm Choi-Wan caused flooding in many parts of Taipei yesterday afternoon.
At 2:45pm, Daan (大安), Wenshan (文山), Nangang (南港), Neihu (內湖) and Xinyi (信義) districts reported more than 100mm of rainfall, with city officials saying that they received 274 damage reports, including 260 incidents caused by flooding.
The heavy rain also caused knee-deep flooding in areas around Bojia Elementary School and Muzha Road in Wenshan District, as well as near Zhongxiao E Road in Xinyi District near Zhongxiao Fire Station.
Photo: CNA
The Taipei City Hall MRT station also reported that multiple exits were flooded, they said.
The Nanbu Bridge Underpass was flooded in half a meter of water, Lane 109 of Muzha Road Sec 2 had 200mm of rainfall, and Songren Road was awash in turbid runoff that reached the height of “about half a car tire,” they said.
The thundershowers, which began at about noon, came after the Central Weather Bureau issued a heavy or extremely heavy rain warning earlier in the day for 16 cities and counties across the nation.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Despite efforts to clear the city’s storm drains, their maximum discharge of 78mm per hour was easily outpaced by the rainfall, which reached 100mm to 200mm in five districts, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said.
The Water Resources Agency issued a first-grade flood warning for the districts of Xinyi, Neihu, Wenshan, Daan, Wanhua, Zhongzheng, Nangang and Songshan in Taipei, and Shenkeng (深坑), Sijhih (汐止) and Sindian (新店) in New Taipei City.
A first grade flooding warning refers to a scenario where one hour of rainfall causes serious flooding in an affected area, whereas a second grade warning suggests serious flooding within three hours, the agency said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS