The severely damaged Glutinous Rice Bridge in Nantou's Kuohsin Township (國姓鄉) got a new lease on life yesterday when Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) visited the site and urged local officials to preserve the famous structure.
"This bridge is our historical relic and it is a miracle that it still exists today after so many natural disasters," the premier said. "We must try our best to recover it, renovate it and restore it."
The Glutinous Rice Bridge was completed in 1940. It takes its name from the fact that glutinous rice, lime and sugar were used as construction materials instead of metals. The bridge has survived through all kinds of natural disasters, including three floods and the devastating 921 Earthquake, but it has been unusable since flooding after last summer's Tropical Storm Mindulle washed parts of it away.
Hsieh initially asked local officials to try to preserve the remains of the bridge as they are now instead of repairing it, but Kuohsin Township Warden Lee Tseng-chuan (李增全) disagreed with that plan.
If repairs are not made, "The bridge will be naturally and gradually washed away and will probably be gone forever if flooded again," Lee said.
According to Nantou County's Bureau of Cultural Affairs, a blueprint for the renovation of the bridge will be completed by the end of next month and construction will begin in December at the earliest.
Nantou officials said that the bridge is easily flooded because its design did not include enough sluiceways to carry away water. Therefore the first thing technicians and architects will do is dig more sluiceways near the bridge, as repairs are conducted simultaneously.
The project will cost an estimated NT$25 million (US$789,000). Hsieh could not promise to provide that budget yesterday, but said he would support the proposal when it is submitted to the Cabinet for approval.
"In addition to its initial purpose of transportation, the bridge is also a scenic attraction in Nantou and attracts many Japanese tourists every year," the premier said. "This bridge is a miracle in the history of Taiwan's architecture -- as evidenced by the fact that it's still standing after being hit by so many natural disasters."
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
Taiwan has recorded its first fatal case of Coxsackie B5 enterovirus in 10 years after a one-year-old boy from southern Taiwan died from complications early last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. CDC spokesman Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) told a news conference that the child initially developed a fever and respiratory symptoms before experiencing seizures and loss of consciousness. The boy was diagnosed with acute encephalitis and admitted to intensive care, but his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he passed away on the sixth day of illness, Lo said. This also marks Taiwan’s third enterovirus-related death this year and the first severe
A Taiwanese software developer has created a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model to help people use AI without exposing sensitive data, project head Huang Chung-hsiao (黃崇校) said yesterday. Huang, a 55-year-old coder leading a US-based team, said that concerns over data privacy and security in popular generative AIs such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek motivated him to develop a personal AI assistant named “Mei.” One of the biggest security flaws with cloud-based algorithms is that users are required to hand over personal information to access the service, giving developers the opportunity to mine user data, he said. For this reason, many government agencies and
RSS