Councilors urge Taipei to ramp up disaster prevention

Councilors urge Taipei to ramp up disaster prevention

2023-09-21

Today is National Disaster Prevention Day, marking 24 years since the deadly Chichi earthquake in Nantou. Earthquake drills were held at schools nationwide, as disaster drill alerts went out to mobile phones. At Taipei City Hall, pan-green councilors urged the government to repair the city’s old underground pipes, which could lead to sinkholes, building collapses, and other man-made disasters.

Alarms go off in the middle of class and students rush under their desks. It’s time to drop, cover and hold on.

Student
This will help us react more quickly when an earthquake does strike. We can respond more quickly and lower the chance of running into danger.

Tang Chih-min
Taipei Department of Education
We hope the disaster prevention drill will make campuses safer and raise awareness among students and city residents about how to respond to a disaster.

Sept. 21 is National Disaster Prevention Day. Earthquake drills were held at schools across Taipei. Taipei City Council held discussions on disaster prevention.

Lin Yen-feng
Taipei councilor (DPP)
I’m not only talking about the incident with Kee Tai Properties, which was a man-made disaster. The city’s pipelines are aging, they are old – this has led to the formation of numerous sinkholes. Addressing this issue is one component of disaster prevention. Government agencies should establish routine maintenance and repair mechanisms.

Yen Jo-fang
Taipei councilor (DPP)
Over the past few months, a lot of sinkholes have appeared around Taipei. Taipei is located in a basin, and nobody knows what’s happening with all the pipes underground. With all the earthquakes shaking the pipes, some of them may be stressed to their breaking point. If they reach a point where they can no longer withstand the pressure, it could cause problems. Small earthquakes that wouldn’t usually bring about any major issues could result in leaks that erode foundations and cause buildings to tilt and collapse, or sinkholes to appear.

Councilors discussed recent disasters, including the sinking of several Dazhi apartment buildings and the repeated occurrence of sinkholes. They urged the city government to take preventative action ahead of potential disasters.

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921大地震24周年綠市議員呼籲:北市府繃緊神經

2023-09-21

今天是九二一大地震24周年，國家級警報特別發出兩次通知，許多學校特別在上午進行防災演練，不過，在台北市近期發生大直建案塌陷，加上天坑頻傳，綠營議員今天上午特別招開記者會，點出這些意外不只是天災，更是人禍所致，呼籲北市府繃緊神經。

上課上到一半，警報聲響起，學生們躲到桌子底下，落實趴下、掩護、穩住的動作。

[[學生]]
“讓我們能夠有更快的反應，去反應地震發生的時候，我們能夠去進行更快的反應的速度，讓我們能夠比較不容易受到危險”

[[台北市教育局長湯志民]]
“希望透過這個防災的演練，讓校園環境是一個安全的，讓學生跟我們所有的市民，對於防災的意識都能夠有所因應”

因應921國家防災日，進行地震防災演練，不只北市校園動起來，台北市議會也進行一連串的防災會議討論。

[[台北市議員(民) 林延鳳]]
“不僅僅是基泰建設的這個事情，這個其實是人禍啦，有很多的公共管線，其實都是在老化，都在老舊，所以導致有很多天坑的事件，這個也是災害的一環，所有的公部門的單位，都必須要建立起平常的維護、修繕的機制”

[[台北市議員(民) 顏若芳]]
“台北市在這幾個月，天坑真的非常多，我們覺得台北市是一個盆地，它應該要做整個的總體檢，因為在地底下，沒有人知道下面的管線現在發生什麼事情，如果再加上有地震頻繁，它可能搖一下，那地底下可能有些管線，它已經壓到破掉，壓力它沒有辦法承受的時候，它可能也會導致，本來是小地震沒有什麼狀況，但它有可能衍生出後面管線漏水，導致地基流失，導致後面房子又傾斜坍塌或者是天坑的出現”

議員質疑台北大直建案嚴重塌陷，加上這半年來幾乎每月一天坑，特別選在國家防災日這天，喊話北市府提前預防，避免災害來臨時措手不及。

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Lai Ching-te
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Lai Ching-te
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Taoyuan forges sister-city ties with Philippines’ Angeles City

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Taoyuan Mayor Chang San-cheng strikes a pose with the mayor of Angeles City, who appears onscreen. The two mayors signed a sister-city agreement on Wednesday, preparing gifts to mark the friendship.

Mayor Chang prepared an acrylic painting by Mario Subeldia, a Filipino artist in Taiwan. The work depicts Taoyuan International Airport and Clark International Airport in Angeles City. An airplane in the top right symbolizes the direct flights linking the two cities and their steadfast friendship.

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Vicenta Vega-Cabigting
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Thank you Mayor Chang San-cheng, for recognizing our presence today, albeit remote. Let us make this partnership a catalyst for development in our cities. Thank you! Mabuhay! Xie xie!

Chang San-cheng
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The mayors expressed hope for an enduring friendship between the new sister cities, one with more frequent exchanges and even stronger ties.

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It’s that time of year again. Nuit Blanche Taipei 2023 will launch at sunset on Oct. 7. This year the nocturnal celebration of art is coming to Xinyi Commercial District for the first time.

On the night, the debate chamber of Taipei City Council will transform Into a live theater, open to the public. The office of Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an蔣萬安 will be occupied by Mayor Mao貓 and used for a livestream. Meanwhile the city hall debate chamber will become a live music venue with a dance floor.

Lin Yi-hua
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The three main locations for nighttime revelry are Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taipei City Hall and Taipei City Council. But there are also connected events at nearby Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, Taipei 101 and the whole of Xinyi Commercial District. The night’s installation art and performances attracted more than 460,000 visitors last year. This year, with events in Xinyi, even greater crowds are expected.

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Lin Yi-hua
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Actually the events are mainly clustered in the commercial district. We’re loathe to cause people any disturbance, so at the cinema on Ren’ai仁愛 Road, we’ll invite people to listen to music on headphones.

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Twenty hikers were on a trip in New Taipei’s Ruifang District when they were attacked by a swarm of hornets.

After examining the wounds, a hornet expert determined the group had fallen victim to the Asian hornet. The encounter left seven hikers with mild injuries, two with severe injuries, and two others dead.

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A hornet stung one of the hikers, who then tried to ward them off using a hand fan. Then the hornets began targeting the hiker, more and more started showing up. We ran off. The people in front rushed away, but several people in the back got strung. They ended up lying on the ground, maybe because of the stings or because they tripped. Later over the phone they said more than 100 hornets had attacked four people. It was terrifying.

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Someone got stung. They said it hurt, and they weren’t sure what it was, so they tried to wave it off.

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Located inside the German Trade Office, the Saxon Science Liaison Office Taiwan has officially opened. The office will facilitate science and technology exchanges between Taiwan and Saxony, which is Europe’s semiconductor manufacturing hub. Dr. Josef Goldberger will serve as the office’s liaison officer. The office will be a service center for exchange students from Taiwan and Saxony. It will also be the hub of a new TSMC training program.

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I was working for the German Academic Exchange Service for the last six years. We will have real cooperation with different partners not only industry partners. I will be able to represent of course Dresden University of Technlogy and all the other research institutions and education institutions in the free state of Saxony. I think this is a very exciting task.

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Sebastian Gemkow
Saxony’s state minister for science, culture and tourism
I don’t have any doubts that being together with people from Taiwan. I think that the working ethic is very similar. People are disciplined like in Germany as well. This working culture is very similar. And of course, we will also prepare everything to make it most convenient for people coming to Saxony to Dresdin that they find some kind of community and some kind of ecosystem which makes them feel comfortable so I don’t have any doubts.

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TU Dresden has a private economy arm which is TUDAG, and they are developing a special cultural special on-boarding program for the TSMC professionals to come and do the startup for the company. So we are very optimistic that this will work quite well.

TU Dresden, or the Dresden University of Technology, is one of the largest universities of technology in Germany. It will manage operations at the liaison office on behalf of all Saxon higher education institutes. It is estimated that 50 students from Germany will be sent to Taiwan universities every year to study and intern at TSMC.

Dr. Ursula Staudinger
TU Dresden president
This is a historical moment. We are opening our first science liaison office abroad here in Taipei. TUD is doing this as the coordinating university for all the Saxon universities. We will be signing the trilateral agreement between TSMC, the free state of Saxony, and TUD. It is really about, on the one hand, getting more and more engineering and natural sciences students interested in the sphere of semiconductors. And what we were discussing was getting into research cooperation.

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Taiwanese company TSMC decided to go to Germany with a great investment, a comprehensive investment in the city of Dresden. What we will see now, that it is not just the industrial cooperation that will intensify between Germany and Taiwan, but this will be matched by the intensification to academic cooperation. This goes hand in hand. For that reason, I think it is a wonderful location to have this office here with the chamber. The office which is related very closely to the numerous German companies in Taiwan. Many of them are also active in the sector of semiconductors.

With the launch of the office ahead of TSMC’s Dresden project, the two countries hope to further strengthen education, science, and technology collaboration between Taiwan and Germany.

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