Recent torrential rain has caused over NT$200 million (US$6.06 million) worth of agricultural damage, Council of Agriculture (COA) officials said yesterday.
About 16 percent of the country's arable land has been adversely affected, resulting in damage worth NT$237.52 million.
Watermelon and muskmelon farmers in Miaoli will receive compensation for their losses, the council said.
PHOTO: CHEN YI-MIN, TAIPEI TIMES
In southern Taiwan, the price of vegetables has reportedly been soaring due to crop damage. The price of eggplants rose from NT$30 to NT$80 per kilo and the price of balsam pears went up to NT$80 per kilo.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday traveled to Houlung township (後龍) in Miaoli County to inspect serious damage to watermelon fields caused by the rain.
Su promised cash subsidies for the farmers who suffered damages.
The COA issued a landslide alert yesterday for Miaoli, Taichung, Yunlin, Chiayi, Kaohsiung and Nantou counties.
It also raised the number of rivers on a red alert list for mudflows from 233 to 299.
The council sounded the alert shortly after the Central Weather Bureau warned that the entire country is expected to experience a lot more wet weather through Monday.
The weather forecasters said the heavy rain is caused by a stationary front that is lingering over Taiwan.
The bureau said people should take precautions against heavy or torrential rain, while those living in mountainous regions should be particularly aware of the threat of landslides, falling rocks, mudslides and flooding.
In other weather-related developments, an excavator operator was buried alive by mudslides at the intersection of Da-hua First Rd and Second Rd in Keelung.
Two workers in Pingtung became stuck in a sand bar but rescued an hour later.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS