【明報專訊】The Incident
The first nuclear power plant in Taiwan went into operation in the 1970s. With it Taiwan has relied less on fossil fuels. Two other nuclear power plants were completed in 1980s. The construction of the fourth nuclear power plant (Nuke 4, 核四) in Taiwan started in 1999. It was first expected to come into operation by 2004. The world saw the Chernobyl accident (切爾諾貝爾核災) in Ukraine in 1986. The nuclear disaster, which caused massive destruction and had long-term impact, alarmed the world. It was heatedly debated whether the Nuke 4 project should continue.
On the second anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (日本福島第一核電廠事故), over a hundred groups staged an anti-nuclear protest in big cities in Taiwan. Over 100,000 people took part in it - more than in any anti-nuclear campaign in history.
On 27 April 2014, about 50,000 people rallied in Taipei to urge the government to call off the Nuke 4 project. Protesters occupied a part of Chung Hsiao West Road (忠孝西路), causing a traffic tie-up. When the police used water cannons to disperse them, a crash occurred.
The Taiwanese government has announced that the first reactor of Nuke 4 will be sealed off (封存) after a security check and the construction of the second reactor will stop. It added that whether the Nuke 4 project would resume would be determined by referendum (公投).
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