Environment:
Heavy Rain Dampens Taiwan’s ‘Extreme Heat’ Drill
As downpours drenched much of the island, officials in New Taipei City pushed ahead with the first drill of its kind in Taiwan.
People walk along a street amid heavy rain due to Super Typhoon Kong-rey in Keelung on October 31, 2024. – Taiwan shut down on October 31 as Super Typhoon Kong-rey neared, forcing thousands to flee from one of the most powerful storms to threaten the island in years. (Photo by I-Hwa CHENG / AFP)
Taiwan had planned an “extreme heat drill” for government officials and emergency workers to practise their response to 40C temperatures, but Thursday’s exercise was almost washed out by heavy rain.
As downpours drenched much of the island, officials in New Taipei City pushed ahead with the first drill of its kind in Taiwan.
Around 300 people from the labour, fire, social welfare and medical sectors took part in various scenarios that were based on temperatures reaching 40C for three consecutive days.
But instead of hats and sunscreen, raincoats and umbrellas were handed out to those involved in the simulations, and portable gazebos set up to protect against the wet weather.
The heavy rain was a “test of our ability to respond and adapt”, said Chang Ken-mu, deputy director-general of the environment ministry’s Climate Change Administration.
“In the future… we could have extreme heat in the morning and intense rainfall in the afternoon, turning a heat drill into a flood drill. This is very likely to happen in Taiwan,” he said.
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In one exercise, a man pretending to be homeless and suffering heatstroke lay on the wet ground as two paramedics ran through the rain with an ambulance gurney to administer first aid.
Water trucks with flashing lights simulated attempts to cool street surfaces that had reached 50C by spraying water on the rain-soaked bitumen.
In another exercise, government inspectors pretended to check a construction site where workers gingerly walked through puddles as they moved steel frames from one spot to another.
People simulating heat-related conditions were sent to emergency rooms, while elderly people living alone or in nursing homes were also a focus of the drill. Transport disruptions and power outages also featured.
After record heatwaves across Europe this summer, “extreme high temperatures can no longer be treated as just a simple weather event,” Deputy Environment Minister Hsieh Yein-rui told reporters.
“They will affect public health, energy, risk, rail infrastructure, transportation, and the ecological environment,” Hsieh said.
The large-scale event involving 30 central government agencies, 16 bureaus and departments of New Taipei City, three companies and one medical facility was originally scheduled to be held last week but was postponed due to a typhoon.
“We knew it was going to rain today. The point is… under any conditions, we have to be able to operate,” said Chang.
Temperatures in New Taipei City often reached the high 30s during recent summer months, but on Thursday the mercury topped out at 29C, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA).
Around 44 millimetres (1.7 inches) of rain fell over three hours in the area where the drills were held, which CWA forecaster Wang Pin-hsiang told AFP “isn’t really considered particularly heavy rainfall”.
