SOCIETY
Gas leak hospitalizes 14
Three people were in a critical condition following a carbon dioxide leak at an onshore construction site for an offshore wind farm in Changhua County yesterday morning that resulted in 14 people being hospitalized. The leak occurred as workers were filling 200 cylinders with carbon dioxide, the Changhua County Fire Bureau said. First responders found three workers who were experiencing cardiac arrest in the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park (彰濱工業區), the bureau said. Doctors resuscitated a man surnamed Chien (簡), whose heart had stopped beating, the Tungs’ Taichung MetroHarbor Hospital said. A man surnamed Wang (王) with lacerations on his head was hospitalized, while a man surnamed Pan (潘), who was comatose when he arrived at hospital, had regained consciousness and was being treated for inhalation of unknown substances, a hospital spokesperson said. Changhua County Fire Bureau personnel said it was about 10am when they received a report about the incident at the construction site, where workers were erecting a voltage reduction station.
Photo courtesy of Red Bull
MEDIA
Chunghwa boss faces claims
Chunghwa Telecom Co chairman Kuo Shui-yi (郭水義) was yesterday accused of special breach of trust for allegedly paying more than NT$400 million (US$12.5 million) to help ELTA TV cover a NT$500 million fee to obtain exclusive rights to broadcast the Paris Olympics in Taiwan. ELTA secured the rights after also receiving NT$80 million from the Sports Administration, meaning it paid only NT$20 million for the rights, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Yang Chih-tou (楊植斗) said, while filing a complaint against Kuo with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for contravening the Securities and Exchange Act (證券交易法). Before the Olympics started, ELTA also collected NT$18 million in fees from Taiwan Public Television Service and Chinese Television System to broadcast the Games and provide footage to domestic news channels, Yang said. He said he believed that Kuo acted in contravention of his duties with the intention of benefiting himself or a third party, causing Chunghwa Telecom to engage in unlawful transactions that were inconsistent with its business practices, and resulting in the telecom incurring significant economic losses.
SPORTS
B-Boy makes major final
Breakdancer Sun Chen (孫振), also known as B-Boy Quake, has become the first Taiwanese to reach the final of The Notorious IBE, a major hip-hop dance gathering in the Netherlands. Quake lost to Colombian B-Boy Alvin in the men’s solo final in Heerlen on Sunday, capping off his historic run at the three-day breaking competition. It was “the stage I watched since I was little,” he wrote on Instagram after the final battle. Sun had outdanced Alvin 2-0 in the pre-qualifiers for an Olympic Qualifier series in Budapest in June. The B-Boy from Hsinchu has solidified his reputation as a trailblazer for Taiwanese breakdancers by appearing this year’s Games, which hosted breaking for the first time in Olympic history. He failed to advance to the quarter-finals in Paris, but in the Netherlands demonstrated how he had taken his moves to the next level in just one week. Sun also competed in the five vs five crew battle as a member of City4Crew, but they were ousted in the quarter-finals. He is next to compete at Outbreak Europe in Slovakia and the World Battle in Portugal.
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
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
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