Government agencies have dispatched a toxic disaster response team to a plant of Nanya Plastics Corp. engulfed by a fire in southwestern Chiayi County yesterday and will closely monitor the company's operations. Initial estimate put the fire damage at roughly NT$150 million as about 30 percent of production lines were destroyed.

A suspect has been arrested for selling counterfeit products online, intellectual property rights police in Chiayi, southern Taiwan, said yesterday.

The strong winds of Typhoon Fanapi ripped the roof off of a Chiayi County residence late Sunday night, scaring the exposed occupants, who were literally left without a roof over their heads.

ICRT, the only all-English radio station in Taiwan, came through loud and clear in southern Taiwan's Chiayi region Monday for the first time in 31 years of broadcasting on the island.

President Ma Ying-jeou presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sunday for 90 newly completed permanent houses in southern Taiwan's Chiayi County for survivors of Typhoon Morakot, which devastated some southern regions in August last year.

Police officers in Chiayi County said they received a flood of inquiries yesterday from people offering donations to an impoverished family after local media carried reports of a man stealing a bicycle so that his daughter could get to school on time.

Thirty people participating in a weight-loss program organized by Chiayi Hospital have shed a total of 100 kilograms in a healthy way, a hospital spokesman said yesterday.

A Canadian English teacher is grateful at not having to serve a jail term or pay a heavy fine for drunk driving, instead being sentenced to 300 hours of community service teaching English to disadvantaged children, an official of the Chiayi District Prosecutors Office said over the weekend.

Investigators in Chiayi City seized roughly 14,000 garments that carried “Made in Taiwan” labels but were actually produced in China during a raid at a warehouse in the southern city.

A preparatory meeting for the 2011 conference of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) is set to open in Chiayi City, southern Taiwan today.