The water play areas at four parks in New Taipei City are to open from Sunday, giving children and families an option for cool recreation as summer heats up, the city government said yesterday.
The four play areas are in Sanchong’s (三重) New Taipei Metropolitan Park, Sunshine Sports Park in Sindian (新店), Singji Park in Sijhih (汐止) and Wenzaidi Wetland Park in Sinjhuang (新莊), the city’s High Riverbank Construction Management Office said in a press release.
The water play areas will initially be open only on weekends from Sunday to June 30, office Director Chang Hsiu-ming (張修銘) said.
Photo courtesy of New Taipei City’s High Riverbank Construction Management Office
During the school summer vacation from July 1 to Aug. 31 the water facilities will be open daily, with the exception of cleaning days either on Tuesday in Sanchong, Sindian and Sijhih or Monday in Sinjhuang, Chang said.
The water park in Sanchong is based on the theme of Taiwan’s marine life, while all four play areas include features such as fountains, wading pools, arch sprinklers and mist machines, the office said.
In related developments, the Water Resources Agency (WRA) yesterday said that two days after water alerts were either lifted or lowered for Taichung and Kaohsiung, reservoirs around Taiwan continued to show major gains in water reserves after heavy rains.
From 7am on Sunday to 7am yesterday, the seasonal “plum” rains contributed 23.6 million cubic meters of water to major reservoirs across the nation, WRA data showed.
In northern Taiwan, the Sinshan (新山), Feitsui (翡翠), Shihmen (石門) and Second Baoshan (寶二) reservoirs, as well as the Yuanshan Weir (鳶山堰), received an estimated 7.1 million cubic meters of rainfall, with Shihmen Reservoir alone getting 6 million cubic meters, the data showed.
In central Taiwan, the Techi (德基) and Liyutan (鯉魚潭) reservoirs were at 74.04 percent and 73.6 percent of capacity respectively, up slightly from 70.68 percent and 69.79 percent on Saturday last week.
In the south, the Zengwen (曾文) and Wushantou (烏山頭) reservoirs have accumulated more than 100 million cubic meters of water in total, enough for farm irrigation on the Jianan (Chiayi/Tainan) Plain.
The water reserves at major reservoirs in southern Taiwan have all increased, with the addition of 12.1 million cubic meters in rainfall during the current plum rains, the WRA said.
The biggest reservoir in southern Taiwan, Zengwen, saw its water reserves rise to 12.69 percent of capacity as of yesterday, up from 11.15 percent on Saturday last week and 6.97 percent on June 1.
Kaohsiung and Tainan had been on an orange water alert, but the alerts were lowered on Monday to yellow for Tainan and green for Kaohsiung.
A green alert indicates that water-storage levels are still below normal and efforts should continue to be made to conserve water.
Green is the lowest level of warning in the nation’s four-tier water alert system with no water restrictions.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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