A total of 48 retired emergency vehicles, including ambulances, that have been refurbished by a businessman in Changhua County are soon to be delivered to Ukraine to help rescue workers there.
At a donation ceremony on Friday, Pai Tsan-jung (白璨榮), director of Shenkang Township (神岡)-based Sun Jen Textile Co, said he came up with the idea after hearing a friend discussing plans to assist Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion.
The initial plan was to purchase used emergency vehicles from abroad and deliver them to Ukraine, but that idea proved to be too expensive, Pai said.
Photo: Liu Hsiao-hsin, Taipei Times
So instead, he decided to buy retired ambulances and fire trucks from the government, and get them refurbished by local garages, Pai said.
At first, the plan was to send about four vehicles to Ukraine, but after receiving a donation of about 100 government-owned emergency vehicles from across Taiwan, the scale of the plan increased exponentially, he said.
Pai said he has already spent about NT$10 million (US$321,182) on refurbishing the vehicles, and the first batch is set to be shipped to Ukraine on July 13, with assistance from the non-profit Taiwan Association of Community Advancement (TACA) and the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.
Despite being retired, the vehicles have been refurbished and would continue to be useful in Ukraine, TACA head Chang Tsai-kai (張再凱) said at the ceremony, which was also attended by Department of European Affairs Director Vincent Yao (姚金祥) and Olga Kulish, a convener of Ukrainians living in Taiwan.
Kulish said that since the war started, the lack of medical resources has been a critical issue, with many hospitals destroyed and a general shortage of ambulances and fire engines.
She thanked the people of Taiwan for the emergency vehicles, saying they would be used to save lives in Ukraine.
In a prerecorded video, Kira Rudik, leader of the liberal Holos party in Ukraine, said that Taiwan has been helping Ukraine since the beginning of the war, and that support shows little sign of abating.
When Ukraine was invaded 16 months ago, not many people believed Ukrainians could resist this long, Rudik said.
However to this day, Ukraine continues to fight back, because its people are fighting for their freedom and future, she said.
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
RSS