A first batch of donations from Taiwan for survivors of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Turkey arrived in the country yesterday morning, the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation said.
The donations, including 1,358 boxes containing 8,148 blankets, arrived at 5:30am as part of international relief efforts after the earthquake struck on Monday last week, the foundation said.
After their arrival, the supplies would be transported on a domestic flight to Adana airport, the operational airport that is closest to the affected area, where they would be distributed by local authorities, it said.
Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, REUTERS
The foundation said it is working with the Turkish Trade Office in Taipei to accept donations at the Buddhist group’s office in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖).
It said it accepts newly bought winter clothes for adults and children, beds, sleeping pads, sleeping bags, mattresses, blankets, thermos flasks, flashlights, diapers, sanitary pads, and cleaning and hygiene items.
The 150 tonnes of donations was loaded onto an airplane at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Saturday.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Space Agency
The Turkish office at the time said it expected them to arrive in Turkey yesterday evening.
Turkish Representative to Taiwan Muhammed Berdibek yesterday said the amount of donations the office received was overwhelming.
It temporarily stopped accepting donations at 5pm yesterday, ahead of the original deadline on Wednesday, he added.
However, the office later said that people who had already bought relief items for Turkey could bring them in until 5pm today.
Berdibek said the relief process is expected to take months or years.
If Turkey needs more assistance from Taiwan, the office would make an announcement, because “we know you are so generous and so kind,” he said.
Meanwhile, Huang Qiu-liang (黃秋良), a volunteer at the foundation who is helping handle donations at its Neihu liaison office, said that more than 1,000 volunteers had been helping at the office each day since Friday.
They accept donations and prepare them for transport to Taoyuan airport, Huang said
Today, the Taiwanese military is scheduled to dispatch 10 trucks and 30 personnel to help transfer supplies to the airport, he said.
They would be loaded onto a Turkish Airlines plane and sent to Turkey as soon as possible, Huang added.
Huang said only new items would be accepted, citing hygiene and COVID-19 concerns.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS