Displaying pictures of decaying nuclear waste barrels and a girl with a brain tumor, Tao Aborigines from Lanyu (蘭嶼, also known as Orchid Island) yesterday accused the government and Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) of trying to annihilate the tribe by storing nuclear waste on the island for three decades.
“I cry everytime I tell the story of this five-year-old girl because I’m also a mother, and I believe every mother would feel heartbroken when she sees this picture and hears the story,” Sinan Mavivo, an anti-nuclear activist and resident of Lanyu, told a news conference in Taipei, while showing a picture of a five-year-old girl whose head was wrapped in gauze.
“When I first saw her, I thought she was wearing a mask, but no, it was gauze. She has to wear it because she has to undergo several treatments for brain tumor, and since she’s so little, the procedure has to be done through her mouth,” Sinan Mavivo said.
Photo: Mandy Cheng, AFP
She choked back sobs as she talked, while Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) and Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Lin Shih-chia (林世嘉) wiped away tears from their faces when they saw the picture.
Sinan Mavivo said that although there is no research establishing a firm connection between cancer and nuclear waste, official figures show that the cancer rate on the island has risen since the nuclear waste facility was opened in 1982.
She showed another picture in which workers were shown working in a trench where nuclear waste barrels are stored in the Lanyu Nuclear Waste Storage site. Most of the barrels have deteriorated, and dust-like nuclear waste was scattered around the trench.
“This is what it looks like in the trench, and the radioactive dust scatters whenever they open the cover over the trench to inspect the barrels, contaminating the land and sea,” Sinan Mavivo said.
After seeing the pictures, Tien said she recently visited the nuclear waste storage facility at the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Wanli District (萬里), which she said was “fully air-conditioned with temperature and humidity control.”
“Why is the nuclear waste dump in Lanyu so primitive?” Tien asked.
“It’s not fair that we who live on Taiwan proper enjoy the electricity produced by these nuclear power plants, but it’s the people on Lanyu who have to take the waste,” she said.
Tien said she would ask Taipower to make funding available to remove the nuclear waste from the island, and push a special law to compensate Lanyu residents for what they have endured.
Lin supported the idea and accused Taipower of illegally storing nuclear waste on the island, since the lease for the plot of land where the facility is located expired at the end of last year.
Chang Hai-yu (張海嶼), a pastor at a local church, said that since the company had completed an inspection of all nuclear waste barrels last year, “Taipower should remove them from the island, and send them back to where they came from.”
“I hope President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) hears our cry, otherwise, the Tao are heading for destruction,” said Kuo Chien-ping (郭建平), a long-time Tao activist against nuclear waste.
“I’m sure he will hear us, because he always learns about current events from newspapers, and if newspapers publish what we say here, he will read about it tomorrow,” he said.
The Tao, as well as anti-nuclear activists, will stage a rally against nuclear power on Saturday next week in Taipei.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
Parts of the nation, including in the south, could experience temperatures as low as 7°C early tomorrow morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. A strong continental cold air mass coupled with the effect of radiative cooling would bring cold weather to several northern cities and counties, and could even affect areas as far south as Tainan early tomorrow, the CWA said. Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties would experience temperatures below 10°C until this evening, according to cold surge advisories issued by the weather agency. The weather across the nation is forecast to remain
RSS