Three weeks after a South Korean freighter carrying more than 2,000 tonnes of benzene capsized off Taoyuan County, the government on Thursday tried to demolish the ship with bombs and missiles.
Although two separate bombing runs failed to sink the ship, the Ministry of National Defense declared the mission a success.
Admitting that it was "embarassing" that the initial effort by two F-16s to bomb and sink the ship failed, Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (
Lee made the remarks on the legislative floor yesterday while fielding a question from the lawmakers about the ministry's mission to demolish the ship at the request of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).
The ship capsized off Taoyuan County on Oct. 10, after colliding with a Taiwanese-owned, Liberian-registered container ship from Hong Kong.
The EPA confirmed that 1ppm (parts per million) of benzene had been detected in the air within 2 nautical miles (3.7km) of the site. The testing results of water samples collected from the surrounding waters also showed a leakage of benzene.
The EPA was afraid that the leak could pollute the area, and affect the safety of other ships. So it decided to blast the ship with the help of the military, after consulting experts at home and abroad.
According to the EPA, as benzene is a highly volatile substance, it would be likely to disperse rapidly into the atmosphere after the ship had been blasted, and that there was little risk of the fumes reaching land.
The ministry sent two F-16 fighter jets equipped with two 2,000 pound laser-guided bombs from an air base in central Taiwan to carry out the mission.
The fighters failed to complete the mission, with only "some" of the bombs hitting the target due to "relatively thick clouds."
Later, two AH-1W Super Cobra helicopters were dispatched. They fired a total of eight Hellfire missiles at the ship on Thursday afternoon. Although they also failed to completely sink the ship, the ministry said the second mission was much more effective than the first one.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS