CHARITY
Millions given to Japan
People in Taiwan donated more than NT$540 million (US$17.2 million) for relief aid and post-disaster reconstruction work in western Japan in the wake of the Noto earthquake on Jan. 1, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday, three days after a donation program ended. From Jan. 5 to Friday, NT$541,589,468 in 134,368 donations poured into the designated bank account the ministry set up after a magnitude 7.5 earthquake rocked the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture on the first day of this year, the ministry’s Department of Social Assistance and Social Work said. The donation program concluded at 11:59pm on Friday and members of the public would no longer be able to make donations to the account, the ministry added. The donated funds would be transferred to Japan via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the details of the donors would be made public on the health ministry’s Web site.
An NHK report on Monday said that local authorities in Japan have confirmed at least 232 deaths from the disaster, with more than 15,000 people still housed in shelters in Ishikawa Prefecture. As of 2pm on Sunday, the earthquake had caused damage to more than 34,000 houses and buildings, with 49,000 households still without any water supply, NHK said.
ENVIRONMENT
Factory fined for dead fish
The Taoyuan city government said on Sunday that it is to issue a fine after a hydrochloric acid leak at the shuttered Chemours chemical plant in the city’s Guanyin District (觀音) caused mass fish deaths in a public estuary. The city’s Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement that the case was first brought to light on Friday when residents near Guanyin District reported large numbers of dead fish by the estuary at one end of the Daku River (大堀溪). After conducting an investigation, the department said it realized the fish were killed by hydrochloric acid that had leaked from a cracked pipe at the plant. The failure of those responsible for managing the facility to deal with the leak within three hours constituted a violation of the Water Pollution Control Act (水污染防治法), which carries a maximum fine of NT$6 million, the department said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its