VP Hsiao urges youth to help with post-typhoon relief work in hometown

Taipei, July 13 (CNA) Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) on Sunday called for youth from southern Taiwan to return home and help family and friends with post-typhoon relief work, during a visit to Chiayi City, which was badly hit by Typhoon Danas.

Hsiao encouraged young people studying outside southern Taiwan to return homes during the ongoing school summer vacation to help family and friends still reeling from the typhoon's impact a week ago.

The vice president was in Chiayi to attend a ceremony held by the Jiuhua Mountain Temple where NT$10 million (US$341,600) was donated to local authorities to help recovery work in the aftermath of Danas.

Half of the donation went to the Chiayi City government, and the other half to the Chiayi County government.

Danas made landfall in Chiayi County at 11:40 p.m. on July 6, the first time the eye of a typhoon reached Chiayi since comprehensive weather records began in 1958.

Although Danas weakened and was downgraded to a low-pressure system, it brought moist southwesterly winds that caused several days of heavy rain in southern Taiwan, hampering recovery efforts.

The first named storm to hit Taiwan in the 2025 Pacific typhoon season also brought down a record 2,454 power poles, leaving up to 997,574 homes without electricity, according to state-run Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower).

As of 6 p.m. Sunday, Taipower data showed 9,169 households across Taiwan were still without power. The company said Thursday that many of these households were in remote areas, and it took longer to restore power to all affected households than in previous natural disaster-caused blackouts.

During her visit to Chiayi, Hsiao also donated blood at a blood drive organized by the temple, amid an appeal made by the Taiwan Blood Services Foundation for central and southern Taiwan.

The overall blood inventory at the blood center in Kaohsiung, which handles blood supply for Chiayi City and County, Tainan, Kaohsiung, and the counties of Pingtung and Taitung are expected to last 5.8 days -- below the safety level of seven to 10 days, the foundation said in a statement Sunday.

Reserves are also enough for 5.8 days at the blood center in Taichung, which is responsible for the city and counties of Nantou, Changhua and Yunlin, according to the foundation, which attributed the low levels to the days of rain and people being busy with post-typhoon cleanup work.

The foundation urged people to donate blood as the weather improves in the region.

The blood center in Taipei has an inventory of 6.9 days in the region covering Greater Taipei, Keelung City and Yilan and Hualien counties, while the blood center in Hsinchu for Taoyuan, Hsinchu City and County and Miaoli County has reserves for 9.1 days, according to the foundation.