A National Police Agency (NPA) mobile app shows the locations of 106,000 air-raid shelters across Taiwan, the Ministry of National Defense said, after a lawmaker urged the government to improve information on civil defense services.
In a written question to the Executive Yuan on Nov. 12, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Liao Wan-ju (廖婉汝) said that officials have provided the public with insufficient information regarding how to survive if a war breaks out with China.
As military tensions mount across the Taiwan Strait, the government must provide the public with better advice, such as what they should pack in survival kits, what products and resources to stockpile, and the location of shelters, she said.
Photo: Chang Tsung-chiu, Taipei Times
The ministry said that the public would need to move to purpose-built, or otherwise certified, air-raid shelters, whose locations are available on an emergency evacuation shelter list on the NPA Services (警政服務) mobile app.
Existing policy says that military personnel, police officers and firefighters are to guide the evacuation and sheltering of civilians during an air raid, the ministry said, adding that the military is coordinating with civilian officials to disseminate information about the process.
Air-raid alarms are disseminated by sirens and cellphone alerts.
The alerts are to include hyperlinks that inform people of nearby shelters, it added.
Police departments nationwide have been ordered to affix signage near emergency shelters, it said, adding that the effectiveness of evacuation drills would be tested as part of next year’s Han Kuang exercises.
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