Typhoon Koinu brought heavy rains and strong wind to Taiwan, leaving more than 200,000 households without electricity and causing injuries, authorities said on Thursday.

Koinu was passing over southern Taiwan, said the Central Weather Administration (CWA).

The storm would continue to affect Taiwan until Friday, when it heads onward towards south-eastern China.

CWA forecaster Wu Wan-hua told a news conference that a monitoring station in Lanyu, or Orchid Island, in eastern Taiwan, showed a record high wind gust late on Wednesday, with a speed of 95.2 metres per second.

The wind gust surpassed the previous record of 89.8 metres per second in 1984 in Lanyu.

At least 190 people were injured due to accidents, said the Central Emergency Operation Centre.

Local Governments had reported 1,719 accidents, including more than 900 involving fallen trees and shop signs.

Local media showed images of fallen power lines and trees in affected areas in southern and eastern Taiwan, where some tin houses were torn apart.

Many schools and offices were closed on Thursday and more than 220 international and domestic flights were cancelled.

Train services on mountains or flood-prone areas in eastern Taiwan were suspended.

Similarly, ferry services connecting the island of Taiwan and offshore islets have been suspended since Tuesday.

Taiwan said on Wednesday it would exercise its right to self defence and counter-attack if Chinese armed forces entered its territory, as Beijing increased military activities near the democratic island.

Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own against the strong objections of the government in Taipei, has held military exercises around the island this month in reaction to a visit to Taipei by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Taiwanese defence officials said China’s “high intensity” military patrols near Taiwan continued and Beijing’s intention of making the Taiwan Strait separating the two sides its “inner sea” would become the main source of instability in the region.

“For aircraft and ships that entered our sea and air territory of 12 nautical miles, the national army will exercise right to self-defence and counter-attack without exception,” Lin Wen-Huang, deputy chief of the general staff for operations and planning, told reporters at a news briefing.

Taiwan has complained of Chinese drones repeatedly flying close to its small groups of islands near China’s coast.

The military will exercise the same right to counter-attack Chinese drones that did not heed warnings to leave its territory after posing threats, Lin added.

Taiwan fired warning shots at a Chinese drone for the first time on Tuesday shortly after President Tsai Ing-wen ordered Taiwan’s military to take “strong countermeasures” against what she termed Chinese provocations.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, in a regular press briefing, reiterated China position that Taiwan belonged to it.

“Firstly I need to tell you, Taiwan is a province of China, it has no so-called defence ministry. The Taiwan authorities are playing up their nervousness, this is meaningless,” he said.

Earlier in the week, the ministry had dismissed complaints from Taiwan about drone harassment as “not worth fussing about”.

In the same briefing, Ma Cheng-Kun, a director from military academy National Defence University, said China might further move to reject passage of foreign naval ships through the strait without its permission.

“After the new military normal status has been consolidated, then the risk of collision will increase if foreign naval ships insist on the rights of navigation and freedom,” he said.

U.S. warships and those from allied nations such as Britain and Canada have routinely sailed through the strait in recent years, including two U.S. Navy warships last week.

Taiwan’s armed forces are well-equipped but dwarfed by China’s. Tsai is overseeing a modernisation programme and has made increasing defence spending a priority.

China has not ruled out using force to bring the island under its control. Taipei rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying that the People’s Republic of China has never ruled the island and that only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday praised Taiwan, pledged U.S. solidarity and said her trip through Asia, which led to unprecedented military drills by an angry China, was never about changing the regional status-quo.

Tokyo, Aug. 5, 2022 (Reuters/NAN) U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday praised Taiwan, pledged U.S. solidarity and said her trip through Asia, which led to unprecedented military drills by an angry China, was never about changing the regional status quo.

Under the “One-China” policy, nearly all countries across the globe recognise Beijing’s sovereignty over Chinese Taipei, including the U.S., which has no formal diplomatic ties with the territory but continues to support its anti-China stance and supply it with massive amounts of armaments.

The U.S. House speaker, Nancy Pelosi’s diplomatic support to Taipei infuriated China, prompting it to hold live-fire military drills in the waters off Taiwan.

China’s state broadcaster said the military exercises that are set to end on Sunday, would be the largest conducted by China in the Taiwan Strait.

The exercises have involved live fire on the waters and in the airspace around the island.

Five missiles landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), prompting Tokyo to lodge a strong protest through diplomatic channels.

Speaking after the meeting with Pelosi, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida said China’s military exercises aimed at Taiwan represent a “grave problem” that threatens regional peace and security and the missile launches need to be “stopped immediately”.

Nancy Pelosi, who previously asserted American commitment to democracy in Taiwan and elsewhere as “iron-clad,” said China will not isolate Taipei by preventing American officials from travelling there.

China’s Foreign Ministry, early on Wednesday, lodged a protest with U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns over the unannounced visit by Pelosi to Taiwan, which Beijing calls its “breakaway province.”

The Chinese officials and experts warned Washington would bear all the consequences of this dangerous and provocative move.

Such a visit would also forever change the cross-Straits situation and negatively impact the already-difficult China-U.S. relations.

After her visit to Taiwan, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi flew on to the next stop of her Asia trip in South Korea on Wednesday.

Earlier, the U.S. politician met human rights activists in Taipei, including the former leader of China’s democracy movement, Wu’er Kaixi, which was bloodily suppressed in 1989.

Pelosi also met former Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee and social activist Lee Ming-chee, both of whom had been imprisoned in China, at the Jingmei Human Rights and Culture Park south of Taipei.
Lee had just returned to Taiwan from China after serving a five-year sentence for “subverting state power.”
The discussion, which was also attended by other human rights representatives, focused on how human rights could be promoted in China, Hong Kong and especially in the Xinjiang region, participants reported.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has arrived in Taiwan, marking the highest-level visit by a U.S. official in 25 years.
Pelosi’s U.S. Air Force-operated Boeing C-40C landed at Taipei’s Songshan Airport late Tuesday, marking the start of the third – and most controversial – leg of her five-country Asia tour.

Pelosi and her delegation of Democratic Party lawmakers were met by Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and Sandra Oudkirk, the director of the American Institute in Taiwan, which serves as Washington’s de facto embassy.
Her visit comes despite intense opposition from Beijing, which claims sovereignty over the self-governing island.
Earlier, Beijing Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian has repeatedly warned the U.S. as the U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi considers a trip to TaTaiwan.

The spokesperson said “If the U.S. side insists on this visit, China will take firm and strong measures to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Taiwan says it is banning the entry of non-nationals without a resident permit and the transit of international airport passengers.

The bam came after reporting a new daily record of 333 locally transmitted Coronavirus cases.

The temporary suspension will be imposed from May 19, to June 18, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told a news conference on Monday.

Monday’s number of locally transmitted cases is a sharp jump from Sunday’s previous record daily high of 206, prompting fresh concern about the trajectory of Taiwan’s outbreak.

The sources of infection for dozens of COVID-19 patients remained unidentified, according to the Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC).

Taiwan, which had contained the virus well, in 2020, has seen three-digit numbers of locally transmitted cases since Saturday, when it tightened Coronavirus prevention measures in the Taipei metropolitan area for two weeks.

As of Monday, Taiwan, an island of 23.6 million people, had confirmed a total of just 2,017 cases during the entire pandemic, including 883 locally transmitted cases, and 12 virus-related deaths, according to the CECC.

To lower the risk of transmission, all students from pre-schools to high schools in the two cities were asked to stay home from May 18,until May 28, to lower the risk of transmission.

Taiwan will quarantine all pilots for its largest carrier China Airlines Ltd for 14 days as it tries to stop an outbreak of COVID-19 among its crew.

This will effectively ground the airline, the Health Minister said on Monday.

Taiwan has generally kept the pandemic well under control due to early prevention with only sporadic domestic cases.

However, since last month, it has been dealing with an outbreak linked to China Airlines pilots and an airport hotel where many of them stayed.

There have been 35 confirmed infections so far in the outbreak.

Health Minister, Chen Shih-Chung, told reporters that the only way to break what they believe is a chain of transmission at the carrier is to quarantine all China Airlines pilots currently in Taiwan and send into quarantine those who return to Taiwan.

“This will have a big impact on China Airlines, on its passenger and freighter flights as well as for the crew too.

“But for the safety of the whole community we cannot but make this decision,’’ he said.

The move effectively amounted to a 14-day grounding for the airline and the pilots will only be allowed out of quarantine once they have tested negative, Chen added.

China Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though it has said repeatedly it is cooperating with the government to end the infections and that it has stepped up vaccinating its staff, including pilots.

Taiwan’s health authorities believed some of the pilots got infected first overseas, then spread the infection upon returning to Taiwan.

They also thought that others could have been infected by pilots from other airlines staying at the same hotel.

The government has been alarmed by the cases as some of the pilots went to bars and restaurants in northern Taiwan before their infections were confirmed, running the risk of community transmission.

Although no infections have been linked to that yet.

The airport hotel has since been evacuated and is undergoing a deep clean.

A Taiwan express train, with almost 500 aboard, derailed in a tunnel on Friday after hitting a truck that had slid down a bank onto the track.

The accident killed at least 50 passengers and injuring 146 in the island’s worst rail disaster in seven decades.

Images from the scene showed some carriages ripped apart by the impact, with others crumpled, hindering rescuers in their efforts to reach passengers.

By mid-afternoon, no one was still trapped, though the fire department said it had found body parts, meaning the number of those killed, who included the driver, was likely to rise.

“People just fell on top of one another,’’ a woman who survived the crash told domestic television.

“It was terrifying; there were whole families there.’’

Taiwan’s government said there were 496 people on the train, including 120 without seats.

Many were tourists and people heading home at the start of a traditional long weekend holiday to tend to family graves.

One French citizen was amongst the dead, officials said.

The train was travelling from Taipei, the capital, to the south-eastern city of Taitung.

It came off the rails north of the eastern city of Hualien after hitting a truck that had slid off a road from a nearby construction site, Feng Hui-sheng, the Taiwan Railways Administration’s deputy director, told reporters.

Feng said the manager of the site, which was stabilising the mountainside to prevent landslides, visited around 9.00 a.m. (0100 GMT) and stopped his truck in front of the site office.

“At present, it is suspected because the vehicle wasn’t braked properly, it slid for around 20 metres along the site access road and entered the eastern trunk line,’’ he added.

The official Central News Agency said the Police had taken in the manager for questioning.

The fire department showed a picture of what appeared to be the wreckage of the truck beside the derailed train, with an aerial image of one end of the train still on the track next to the construction site.

Survivors described their terror as the train slammed into the truck and ground to a halt.

“It suddenly came to a stop and then everything shook,’’ one of them told local television.

“It was all so chaotic.’’

Passengers in some carriages still in the tunnel had to be led to safety, the railway administration said.

Images showed an injured passenger carried away on a stretcher, with her head and neck in a brace, while others gathered suitcases and bags in a tilted, derailed carriage as some walked on the train’s roof to exit the tunnel.

The accident occurred at the beginning of a long weekend for the traditional Tomb Sweeping Day holiday.

Taiwan’s mountainous east coast is a tourist destination.

The railway that snakes down from Taipei hugs the coast and is known for its tunnels, in one of which the crash took place.

The link to Taipei opened in 1979.

Taiwan’s state-owned railways are generally reliable and efficient but have had a patchy safety record over the years.

The last major crash was in 2018 when 18 people died and 175 were injured when a train derailed in the island’s northeast.

In 1948, 64 people are estimated to have died when a train burst into flames in northern Taiwan.

A government commission in Taiwan has released a list of 10 military court judges who sentenced a combined 1,153 political detainees to death during four decades of Kuomintang authoritarian rule.

This is according to local media reports on Monday.

Taiwan`s Apple Daily reported that the list had been released Saturday by the Transitional Justice Commission which oversees efforts to redress human rights violations by the autocratic Kuomintang (KMT) regime under the late Chiang Kai-shek and his son Ching-kuo from August 1945 to May 1991.

The Kuomintang fled to the island after losing the Chinese civil war.

The list of judges who issued the most death sentences was culled from a database of over 10,000 military court verdicts created by the commission in 2020 last year from previously secret files.

Most victims were civilians arrested for sedition by the martial law regime and sentenced in tribunals convened under the then Taiwan Garrison Command.

One judge, Yin Ching-wen, issued 203 death sentences.

“Disclosing the names of these death judges is the least that can be done to impose some moral responsibility on perpetrators and restore historical justice for victims and their families,’’ lawyer Huang Di-ying told dpa.

The announcement was part of commemorations of the 74th anniversary of the “Feb. 28 Incident’’ of 1947, a spontaneous rebellion against the KMT regime which was suppressed at the cost of 20,000 lives.

More than 200 people took part in a solemn march in Taipei City on Sunday urging President Tsai Ing-wen`s Democratic Progressive Party administration to take stronger action to correct the harms caused by the KMT party-state.

A Taiwanese man has been fined one million New Taiwan Dollars (35,000 US dollars) for repeatedly breaking his home quarantine.

The CNN reported that the unnamed man, who lives in Taichung in central Taiwan, was under home quarantine in his apartment building after he returned from a business trip to China.

The culprit reportedly violated his quarantine at least seven times.

According to local media, the man left his apartment building seven times in just three days to go shopping, get his car fixed and more.

He reportedly got into an altercation with one of his neighbours when they confronted him about leaving his home during quarantine, CNN citing TTV News reported.

Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen denounced it as “a serious offence” and added that the man “must be given severe punishment.”

Along with the heavy fine, he will have to pay 3,000 NTD (USD 107) per day for the cost of his quarantine.

Last December, a worker from the Philippines was fined 3,500 dollars for violating his quarantine for a total of eight seconds.

The man, who was placed under quarantine in a government-sanctioned hotel, briefly stepped into the hallway outside his room and was captured on CCTV, CNN reported further.

Taiwan has recorded just 889 coronavirus cases and seven deaths to date, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.