Raising public awareness and encouraging individual preparedness are essential to building a resilient society in the face of natural disasters and geopolitical challenges, experts said at a Presidential Office forum yesterday.
“It’s about raising the awareness [that] all households, all citizens ... have to be able to take care of themselves” during emergencies, Finnish National Emergency Supply Agency Director Aki Laiho said.
Laiho emphasized the need for people to take responsibility for their own preparedness, highlighting Finland’s “72-hour concept” that urges households to stock enough food and key supplies to survive at home for at least three days without relying on outside services.
Photo: Screen grab from the Presidential Office’s Flickr page
“Everybody needs to be able to take care of themselves and the family and the people near them for a while,” and should only call the government in when “critical services get interrupted,” he said.
Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator James Barros echoed the same view, adding that “getting our citizens to understand that” was difficult.
“I can tell the families that aren’t ready for a natural disaster. They’re the ones that run to the store, and they buy toilet paper and rice, and that’s it. That’s their get-ready for a disaster,” Barros said.
He said that in Hawaii, where 95 percent of food arrives by ship from the US mainland on five-to-seven-day journeys, authorities urge residents to stockpile two weeks of supplies, including food, water, power sources and medicine.
“We’re constantly pushing that [message] out in every way we can,” Barrow said, adding that awareness campaigns extended from movie theaters to newspapers.
Liu Te-chin (劉德金), a National Security Council adviser, acknowledged the difficulty of persuading Taiwanese to regularly stockpile, and replenish food and other essential supplies, given the easy access to such goods in normal times.
However, he said that increasing household food storage directly contributes to strengthening the nation’s overall food resilience.
Liu said the government was exploring the use of drones to deliver goods to remote and rural areas, where residents still rely on government rations for certain necessities.
At the same time, the government is also working with convenience stores to ensure access to essential goods, such as providing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
Jas Huang (黃士杰), head of Taiwan FamilyMart Co’s Membership and Data Innovation Research Department, said the company is upgrading its food production and logistics systems to ensure it can maintain operations for a limited period using backup power and alternative sources during outages.
FamilyMart is Taiwan’s second-largest convenience store chain by market share, in a market of more than 13,000 stores.
Yesterday’s forum was held on the first anniversary of the Presidential Office’s Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee, an ad-hoc advisory body focusing on civil defense.
Eight Chinese naval vessels and 24 military aircraft were detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait between 6am yesterday and 6am today, the Ministry of National Defense said this morning. The aircraft entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the ministry said. The armed forces responded with mission aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems to closely monitor the situation, it added. Eight naval vessels, one official ship and 36 aircraft sorties were spotted in total, the ministry said.
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reported the return of large-scale Chinese air force activities after their unexplained absence for more than two weeks, which had prompted speculation regarding Beijing’s motives. China usually sends fighter jets, drones and other military aircraft around the nation on a daily basis. Interruptions to such routine are generally caused by bad weather. The Ministry of National Defense said it had detected 26 Chinese military aircraft in the Taiwan Strait over the previous 24 hours. It last reported that many aircraft on Feb. 25, when it spotted 30 aircraft, saying Beijing was carrying out another “joint combat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) today said that if South Korea does not reply appropriately to its request to correct Taiwan’s name on its e-Arrival card system before March 31, it would take corresponding measures to alter how South Korea is labeled on the online Taiwan Arrival Card system. South Korea’s e-Arrival card system lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan)” in the “point of departure” and “next destination” fields. The ministry said that it changed the nationality for South Koreans on Taiwan’s Alien Resident Certificates from “Korea” to “South Korea” on March 1, in a gesture of goodwill and based on the
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