Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) drew criticism yesterday when, after parts of the city had become flooded due to heavy rain on Friday, Deputy Kaohsiung Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) stepped in for him to inspect most of the city’s affected areas.
The city was pummelled by heavy rain on Friday afternoon, with rainfall in some areas reaching 126.5mm, but the floodwater receded from most of the roads in two to three hours, the city government said, adding that the rainfall eased yesterday.
While the flooding caused Han to cancel a presidential campaign stop in Taichung yesterday, he was still not part of the disaster inspections, or part of a second emergency meeting held yesterday morning.
Photo: CNA
Asked about Han’s absence, Lee said that the emergency had been downgraded after the floods subsided and that he had told Han that he would host the morning meeting.
Lee said that, as Friday’s rainfall was more severe than the rainfall on Aug. 23 last year, he had called the second meeting to assess whether the city’s dredging and drainage had been adequage.
There has been speculation that Lee would be Han’s first pick to run in a mayoral by-election if Han — nominated to be the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate — wins the presidential election on Jan. 11 next year.
Asked whether he would run for mayor, Lee responded with a firm no.
The mayor was also criticized for taking part in a dinner with catering businesses on Friday evening after presiding over an initial emergency meeting about the flooding in the city.
Kaohsiung Information Bureau Director-General Anne Wang (王淺秋) yesterday said that Han attended the dinner only after confirming that the flooding had mostly subsided.
Han’s attendance at the dinner was part of his official schedule, and not personal entertainment, the Kaohsiung Local Affairs Bureau added in a statement yesterday.
After Han allegedly disappeared for more than 20 hours, he and Lee yesterday afternoon inspected a flooded apartment building in the Kaohsiung’s Lingya District (苓雅).
Han complained that many people only criticized him, while Pingtung County and Tainan were also hit by heavy rainfall.
In related news, Han’s official account on the messaging app Line went awry on Friday, as one of the Web sites it referred to redirected to a page showing adult videos.
Wang yesterday apologized for the mistake and said that the city government would launch a probe.
“We will fix the situation as soon as possible,” Line added on Friday.
Additional reporting by CNA
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS