A crowd of about 800,000 people converged on the Xinyi District (信義) in Taipei on Saturday night for the city’s countdown celebrations to welcome the new year, the Taipei City Police Department said yesterday.
Floods of people began to crowd into the Taipei City Hall Plaza and the area around Taipei 101 from late Saturday afternoon for the New Year’s Eve countdown festivities.
The focal point of the New Year’s Eve bash was the annual fireworks show at the Taipei 101 skyscraper. This year’s show, which cost NT$30 million (US$990,600), lasted 202 seconds and consisted of 30,000 fireworks.
Photo: EPA/TAIPEI 101
To accommodate the crush of people, the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system remained in operation throughout the night and handled 2.04 million passengers. About 850 volunteers and MRT police were on hand to help maintain order and provide assistance to the handicapped, the elderly, pregnant women and children.
During the six-hour celebration, 172 people called for help, with 62 suffering from falls or sprains and 110 complaining of chest tightness, fever or other problems brought on by the crowded conditions, according to the police department.
Though 60 environmental protection volunteers were on the scene with placards encouraging sound environmental practices, 17.5 tonnes of garbage littered the area and was cleaned up by 500 workers before daybreak.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Fireworks displays were also the highlights of New Year’s Eve celebrations in Greater Kaohsiung.
The fireworks show at E-Da World, a recreation complex, lasted 11 minutes and 11 seconds, and the show at the Dream Mall lasted 180 seconds.
A young man attending the E-Da World party suffered a burn on his head after being hit by burning embers from a firecracker set off by someone in the crowd. He was rushed to the emergency ward of a nearby hospital and was discharged 30 minutes later after being treated, E-Da World spokeswoman Chiang Hui-sung (江惠頌) said.
Photo: Liao Shu-ling, Taipei Times
The individual suspected of setting off the firecracker or explosive device that caused the injury was arrested by police, Chiang said.
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: MOFA demanded Beijing stop its military intimidation and ‘irrational behavior’ that endanger peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region The Presidential Office yesterday called on China to stop all “provocative acts,” saying ongoing Chinese military activity in the nearby waters of Taiwan was a “blatant disruption” of the “status quo” of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. Defense officials said they have detected Chinese ships since Monday, both off Taiwan and farther out along the first island chain. They described the formations as two walls designed to demonstrate that the waters belong to China. The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said it had detected 53 military aircraft operating around the nation over the past 24 hours, as well
‘LAGGING BEHIND’: The NATO secretary-general called on democratic allies to be ‘clear-eyed’ about Beijing’s military buildup, urging them to boost military spending NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte mentioning China’s bullying of Taiwan and its ambition to reshape the global order has significance during a time when authoritarian states are continuously increasing their aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. In a speech at the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte said Beijing is bullying Taiwan and would start to “nibble” at Taiwan if Russia benefits from a post-invasion peace deal with Ukraine. He called on democratic allies to boost defense investments and also urged NATO members to increase defense spending in the face of growing military threats from Russia
LEAP FORWARD: The new tanks are ‘decades more advanced than’ the army’s current fleet and would enable it to compete with China’s tanks, a source said A shipment of 38 US-made M1A2T Abrams tanks — part of a military procurement package from the US — arrived at the Port of Taipei early yesterday. The vehicles are the first batch of 108 tanks and other items that then-US president Donald Trump announced for Taiwan in 2019. The Ministry of National Defense at the time allocated NT$40.5 billion (US$1.25 billion) for the purchase. To accommodate the arrival of the tanks, the port suspended the use of all terminals and storage area machinery from 6pm last night until 7am this morning. The tanks are expected to be deployed at the army’s training
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
RSS