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Unexplained power outages across Taiwan

ByTeo Blašković
unexplained-power-outages-across-taiwan

Image credit: NASA/ISS. Acquired on July 27, 2014

Multiple counties and cities across Taiwan are experiencing unexplained power outages on March 3, 2022.

At 09:00 LT (01:00 UTC) on Thursday, March 3, widespread power outages were affecting Taipei City, Kaohsiung City, Keelung City, New Taipei City, Hualien City, Keelung City, and Tainan City, according to Taiwan News.1

Many intersections have turned into chaotic scenes with traffic police quickly dispatched to direct vehicles, the outlet reported.

Firetrucks have been dispatched across the streets of many cities to deal with emergencies such as people being trapped in elevators.

Currently, whole districts of Tainan City and Kaohsiung City are suffering power outages, while rolling blackouts are also occurring in the central and northern parts of the country.

The nation's economic affairs minister, Wang Meihua, said the outage affected some 5 million households.2

Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen was set to meet the US ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo today. Ing-wen said that a scheduled live stream of her chat with Pompeo had to be temporarily canceled as a result of power outages.

Ing-wen says Taiwan is an independent state called the Republic of China. The state rejects China's sovereignty claims, saying the People's Republic of China has never controlled the island and only its people can decide its future.

The Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese civil war to the communists.3

In December 2021, Taipower said they encounter cyberattacks on a daily basis.4

References:

1 Blackouts reported across Taiwan – Taiwan News

2 Taiwan: Massive power outage affects five million households – BBC

3 U.S. former top diplomat Pompeo arrives in Taiwan, calls it 'great nation' – Reuters

4 Taiwan’s national power company hit by cyberattacks on daily basis – Taiwan News

Teo Blašković founded The Watchers in 2011 and edited it until 2026, covering seismic and volcanic activity, extreme weather, space weather and near-Earth objects. Articles on this page are his archive.

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6 Comments

  1. Because, it is a province of China, since China was founded thousands of years ago and I am certain the Chinese people will unify it this year with the rest of the nation

  2. Very probably this is China flexing. Question: Capitalist or Communist, how the F is global war that “good for business”? The conflict in the Ukraine was brought to you by the military industrial complex and petrochemical empires. Putin is a short old dork. Seems like wars make a strong argument for Democracy. Leader egos endanger everything, but the consensus among populations is for peace and stability. May diplomacy spare lives. Dial it down and divert your energies to hardening for rapid onset climate change.

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