Following disruptions caused by Typhoon Danas, Chunghwa Telecom expects to restore phone, broadband and MOD services today, and complete equipment repairs at the end of next month, an official said yesterday.
Speaking at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, Chunghwa Telecom chairman Chien Chih-cheng (簡志誠) said that full repairs to 33 damaged base stations would be completed by the end of next month, while temporary base stations have been deployed to provide network coverage for the time being.
As of Thursday last week, 2,141 households in the so-called Chianan area — which broadly covers Tainan, Chiayi city and county, and Yunlin County — still had no landline service, while 764 broadband connections were down, data provided by the state-run telecom company showed.
Photo: Screengrab from the Legislative Yuan’s TV
National Communications Commission (NCC) Acting Chairman Chen Chung-shu (陳崇樹) told lawmakers that more than 30 mobile base station vehicles were operating daily in these areas.
The nation’s three main mobile telecom operators are offering affected users 300 free call minutes per month for two months and have introduced additional support measures, he said.
Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Chueh Her-ming (闕河鳴) said the ministry would assist companies in purchasing mobile vehicles equipped with satellite terminal equipment, with each operator planning to buy three.
The ministry would also subsidize related equipment, including satellite terminal racks, domestic routers, firewalls and Wi-Fi access points, and support retrofitting of 31 existing vehicles, he said.
Power outages disrupted many base stations, and telecom companies have agreed to buy more than 200 portable generators to restore service in blackout zones, he said.
The ministry and the NCC would prioritize the construction of high-resilience base stations with 72-hour backup power and promote shared-infrastructure base stations using Taiwan Power substations, he said.
Underground cabling solutions would be studied for disaster-prone areas and evacuation shelters, among other technical measures, he added.
Meanwhile, 303 households remained without electricity as of yesterday morning, following days of heavy rain and flooding in central and southern areas, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.
Power had been cut to 50,671 homes due to the downpours, it said, adding that repair work would resume once roads are reopened or floodwater is drained from underground structures.
To support local governments in clearing standing water, the Water Resources Agency has deployed 47 mobile pumps, it said.
The Central Emergency Operations Center (CEOC) held a work meeting yesterday morning chaired by Deputy Minister of Agriculture Tu Wen-jane (杜文珍).
Tu instructed the center’s medical and environmental teams to “fully support” local governments in disease prevention efforts and to ensure a rapid response to health concerns.
Forty shelters remain in operation across six counties and cities, currently housing 636 people, including 359 in Kaohsiung and 218 in Pingtung County, the center said.
A total of 5,925 people were evacuated, it said.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that no unusual outbreaks or cluster infections have occurred.
However, the agency warned that exposure to contaminated or stagnant water or sludge as people clean their homes could lead to diseases such as leptospirosis, melioidosis or dengue fever.
The CDC urged the public to wear appropriate protective gear, pay attention to food hygiene and eliminate mosquito-breeding sources.
It added that 150,307 bottles of disinfectant have been stockpiled for use in disaster-affected areas.
The CEOC said alerts for debris flows and large-scale landslides remained in effect.
Ten sections of Taiwan’s provincial highways were closed as a precautionary measure, five were blocked due to damage and one additional disaster-related road incident was reported.
Repairs on Provincial Highways Nos. 16 and 20 were expected to be completed yesterday, the CEOC said, adding that traffic controls would be lifted once conditions are deemed safe.
Meanwhile, search-and-rescue operations continued along the Southern Cross-Island Highway (Provincial Highway No. 20), where a vehicle had fallen into a valley.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
MORE RETALIATION: China would adopt a long-term pressure strategy to prevent other countries or future prime ministers following in Sanae Takaichi’s steps, an academic said Taiwan should maintain communications with Japan, as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is to lead a revision of security documents, Taiwanese academics said yesterday. Tensions have risen between Japan and China over remarks by Takaichi earlier this month that the use of force against Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Prospect Foundation president Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) yesterday said Takaichi’s stance regarding Taiwan is the same as past Japanese prime ministers, but her position is clearer than that of her predecessors Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba. Although Japan views a “Taiwan contingency” as a “survival-threatening situation,” which would allow its military to
RSS