Cabinet Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (
"The final date to mark the completion of the tunnel's construction will be made public by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications," Cheng said.
"However, I can assure you that there will only be a ceremony to commemorate those who had dedicated their lives to this tunnel's construction," said Cheng, who also doubles as Government Information Office minister.
The spokesman made the remarks during a press conference following the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday morning.
Cheng said that construction of the tunnel, which is the fifth-longest in the world took 15 years.
At the moment, it was more important to remember the contribution and dedication of those technicians and workers who died during the building of the tunnel, he said.
"Former premiers Yu Shyi-kun and Frank Hsieh (
He added that many foreign architects and technicians had tried to dissuade their Taiwanese counterparts from continuing with the project given the difficulties involved.
"The tunnel is more than 500 meters deep and goes through a huge massif," he said.
In addition, architects and technicians had to work under the threat of continuous water leakage, which could flood the tunnel immediately and drown everybody who was working there, Cheng said.
"The completion of the tunnel has been entered into the record books," Cheng said.
"We finished the construction on our own and we should be proud of it," he said.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
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