Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/02/09
By: Chen Chao-fu, Liao Pei-chi and Ko Lin

Taipei, Feb. 9 (CNA) The bodies of two Canadians were pulled Friday from the rubble of a 12-story building, which partly collapsed in the Hualien earthquake earlier in the week, bringing the death toll to 12, rescue workers confirmed.

The couple, identified as Peter So (蘇煒禧) and Freda So (蕭敏渝), were staying at the Beauty Inn in the Yun Men Tsui Ti building, one of the structures that tipped over in the magnitude 6.0 earthquake late Tuesday.

When rescue workers reached the Canadian couple at about 3:29 p.m. Friday, the two bodies were found next to each other but the woman’s was crushed under a pillar, one of the team members said.

The bodies were taken to a nearby hospital mortuary and confirmed to be those of the Canadian couple, National Fire Agency (NFA) Director General Chen Wen-lung (陳文龍) told reporters.    [FULL  STORY]

MANUFACTURING: The event is to focus on exchanges between manufacturers at a technical level, with talks between Taiwan and US officials a secondary focus

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 10, 2018
By: Lo Tien-pin and Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

The US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference is to be held in Taiwan for the first time, a

senior official involved in the conference said, adding that as a result of the US’ Taiwan Travel Act — which is yet to be passed — that would remove restrictions on visits by high-level US officials, the likelihood of important US government officials attending is very high.

The conference was first held in 2002 and had always been hosted in the US. The event, cohosted by the US-Taiwan Business Council and the Taiwan Defense Industry Development Association, is scheduled for May and is expected to span five days.

Which level of US government officials would attend and whether meetings with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Minister of National Defense Feng Shih-kuan (馮世寬) would be arranged has not been decided, the source said.    [FULL  STORY]

5 Chinese tourists are believed to be trapped inside the collapsed Yun Men Tsui Ti Building in eastern Taiwan’s Hualien 

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/02/09
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Three days after a deadly magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck

eastern Taiwan’s Hualien, seven people remain missing, including five Chinese tourists, who were staying in a hotel in the collapsed Yun Men Tsui Ti Building (雲門翠堤大樓).

The seven missing people are all believed to be trapped in the Yun Men Tsui Ti Building (雲門翠堤大樓), including a Canadian couple and five Chinese tourists, all of whom were believed to be staying in the Beauty Inn. The hotel they were staying in is situated in the second and third floors of the 12- story building, which saw its first three floor collapse after the quake struck at 11:50 p.m. on Feb. 6.

The Canadian couple was staying in room 213, and have been identified as Peter So (蘇煒禧) and Freda So (蕭敏瑜), while a Chinese family of five had booked room 201 of the hotel.  The family included four adults and one child, who were identified as Yanjie (楊捷), 39; Ting Wenchang (丁文昌), 76; Ting Shouhui (丁守慧), 40; Ho Fenghua (何鳳華), 75; and Yang Haoran (楊浩然), 12.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/02/09
By: Joseph Yeh

Taipei, Feb. 9 (CNA) Canadian consular officials are in contact with Taiwanese authorities to gather additional information and providing assistance to the missing Canadians in Hualien earthquake, Canadian government said Friday.

“Global Affairs Canada is aware of reports that Canadian citizens are missing following the recent major earthquake in Hualien, Taiwan,” according to a statement released by Global Affairs Canada, the department in Canadian government that manages the country’s diplomatic and consular relations.

“Our thoughts are with the family and friends during this difficult time,” according to the statement.

“To protect the privacy of the individuals concerned, further details on this case cannot be released,” it added.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-02-08

A team of Japanese earthquake specialists has arrived in Taiwan to help with search

efforts following the magnitude 6.0 quake which rattled Taiwan late on Tuesday night.

A spokesman for Taiwan’s foreign ministry, Andrew Lee, said Thursday the team includes people from the Japan International Cooperation Agency. There are also representatives from the fire and police agencies, and the coastguard.

Lee said, “These seven specialists will not be involved in disaster relief; they will be assisting our specialists and search teams in operating equipment and providing technical assistance and oversight.”    [FULL  STORY]

One program in at National Cheng Kung University is trying to push new concepts that go beyond recycling.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/02/08
By: Nate Maynard

Since the first stone was whittled down into an arrowhead, production has followed a

similar pattern; raw materials are pulled from the earth, formed into usable objects, used until they break and are discarded.

But this linear production model, especially for a small island nation like Taiwan, doesn’t work with industrial scale manufacturing. The old “take-make-dispose” model produces an almost unfathomable amount of waste.

Taiwan has so much existing resource management experience, and students can finally tap into this wealth of knowledge.

The circular economy (CE) concept, endorsed by the UN, the World Economic Forum and an alliance of business leaders, hopes to tighten up the waste stream and make products shareable or transformable. You probably recycle, but a circular or regenerative economy goes beyond that. Researchers define a circular economy as a regenerative system where resource inputs, waste, emissions, and leakages are minimized by slowing closing and narrowing material and energy loops. They achieve this through long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, refurbishing, in addition to recycling.    [FULL  STORY]

It was an ordinary day for Lee Sheng-lung (李昇隆), who had checked into the Beauty Inn in downtown Hualien, as usual, after he arrived in the eastern city Tuesday on a business trip

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/02/08
By:  Central News Agency

Taipei, Feb. 8 (CNA) It was an ordinary day for Lee Sheng-lung (李昇隆), who had

checked into the Beauty Inn in downtown Hualien, as usual, after he arrived in the eastern city Tuesday on a business trip.

But it turned out to be a day he would never forget.

That night, Lee was relaxing in bed, reading some documents, when everything around him began to shake and rattle.

“I thought to myself, I’m definitely dead this time,” Lee told CNA in a phone interview Wednesday.

Within a few seconds, he said, his room went pitch black, then the ceiling collapsed, the bed started tilting and the three floor-to-ceiling windows in the room imploded.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/02/08
By: Huang Lee-yun and Kuan-lin Liu

Taipei, Feb. 8 (CNA) The National Immigration Agency (NIA) is assisting foreign nationals whose travel documents have been damaged or lost in Tuesday’s magnitude 6 earthquake in Hualien and will reissue the relevant documents free of charge, an agency official said Thursday.

NIA Deputy Director-General Bill Chung (鐘景琨) told CNA that the agency has convened an emergency taskforce following the earthquake in response to the many foreign nationals who have reported having lost their IDs.

According to Chung, the NIA is in contact with the Mainland Affairs Council, the Straits Exchange Foundation, the Tourism Bureau, foreign representative offices and travel agencies to provide assistance to foreign nationals who have been caught in the earthquake.    [FULL  STORY]

NOT OVER: Rescue work at the Marshal Hotel and two buildings on Guosheng 6th Street has been completed, but work at the Yun Men Tsui Ti building was continuing

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 09, 2018
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

The death toll from the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that shook the nation on Tuesday

rose to 10 as of press time last night as rescuers continued their efforts to locate victims trapped in the debris of collapsed or partially collapsed buildings in Hualien City.

As of 6pm, statistics from the Central Emergency Operation Center showed that five of the deceased were Taiwanese, three were Chinese and one a Philippine woman.

The identity and nationality of another female body had yet to be ascertained.

Seven were found in the Yun Men Tsui Ti (雲門翠堤) commercial and residential building, which suffered the severest earthquake damage.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-02-07

The defense ministry set up an emergency disaster relief center at 12:30 am on

Wednesday. The army’s Hua-tung defense command also dispatched 398 personnel and vehicles to help with resecue operations.

A C-130 military transport aircraft transported military engineers and rescue teams with life detection systems to Hualien at around 5am. Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan and other top officials are on site directing rescue operations.    [FULL  STORY]