A navy ship will leave today for Cebu City, Philippines, carrying relief supplies for Typhoon Haiyan survivors, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
It will be the first time the navy has visited the Philippines since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
It will take four days for the Chung He class tank-landing ship to travel the 900 nautical miles (1,667km) from Greater Kaoshiung’s Zuoying District (左營), ministry spokesman Major General David Lo (羅紹和) said.
The government donated US$200,000 after Haiyan hit the Philippines on Nov. 8 and sent 150 tonnes of relief supplies collected by Taiwanese charities by military transport planes.
Air force C-130 planes have made 18 flights to deliver relief supplies to the Philippines, beginning on Nov. 12.
Minister Without Portfolio Lin Jung-tzer (林政則) traveled on one of the flights on Thursday last week to check on how the relief supplies are being distributed.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs statistics show that the government and Taiwanese organizations have contributed funds and supplies worth more than NT$190 million (US$6.42 million) to the Philippines as of Thursday.
The navy helped transport Vietnamese refugees in Subic Bay in 1975 after the fall of the South Vietnamese government.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
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