Information about Mingtan Power Station

Year of award:	1988
Commissioning	1993

The rapidly increasing demand for energy in Taiwan, called for the implementation of a second pumped storage scheme. The Mingtan project, a 1,650 MW pumped storage plant and with 6 reversible pump turbines, one of the largest schemes in the world, was built in the years 1988 - 1993. For this project, Taiwan Power Company awarded VA TECH HYDRO the contract for design, fabrication and installation of approx. 26,000 tons of penstocks. The Sun-Moon lake, a famous recreation and holiday area, is used as the upper reservoir of the scheme. From there, two independent waterways lead to an underground power house. For the lower reservoir, a 61.5 m high gravity concrete dam was built at the Shuili River. The headrace conduits have a length of approx. 3.1 km each, including the steel lined crossings of Tousheh River Valley. Except the bifurcators, which needed prefabrication in Austria due to their shell thicknesses, all the fabrication was executed directly at site in a temporary workshop. This workshop was equipped to allow for a prodaction of 1,000 tons of pipes per month. Tonnagewise, MINGTAN is the biggest project ever executed with site fabrication and it remarkably contributes to increase VA TECH HYDRO's record in this construction technology to now almost 170,000 tons.

Technical Data:
Steel Lining (Headrace Tunnel)

Head	102	-
Length	100	m
Diameter	7.5	m
Plate thickness	25	mm
Material	SM53CN	-
Weight	568	to

Steel Lining / Exposed Penstock (Tousheh River Crossing)

Head	182	-
Length	1040+940	m
Diameter	6.8	m
Plate thickness	29-36	mm
Material	SM53CN	-
Weight	12,930	to

Steel Lining / Manifold (High head Penstock)

Head	575	-
Length	913+802	m
Diameter	6.0/4.57/3.23/2.3	m
Plate thickness	46-46-133	mm
Material	HT60, HT80	-
Weight	12,451	to

CREDITS: http://www.andritz.com/ANONID4E50333662BEE98/hydro-references-large-hydro-mingtan

Mingtan Power Station

921 Earthquake

Technical data
The earthquake struck at 01:47:12 am (Taiwan Time) on Tuesday, 21 September 1999 (i.e., 1999-09-21, hence "921"). The epicentre was at 23.77° N latitude, 120.98° E longitude, 9.2 km (5.7 mi) southwest of Sun Moon Lake, near the town of Jiji, Nantou. The tremor measured 7.6 on the Moment magnitude scale, 7.3 on the Richter scale, and the focal depth was 8.0 km (5.0 mi). The Central Weather Bureau recorded a total of 12,911 aftershocks in the month following the main tremor. The earthquake was in an unusual location for Taiwan, which experiences the majority of its earthquakes off the eastern coast, such quakes normally causing little damage. One of the aftershocks, on September 26, was a strong earthquake in its own right, measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale and causing some already weakened buildings to collapse, killing another three people.

Due to an extensive network of sensors and monitoring stations, the quake was the best recorded and analysed large quake in history. At one station, a peak ground motion of 300 cm/s (3 m/s; 10 ft/s) was recorded, the highest ever measurement taken in an earthquake anywhere. Soil liquefaction was observed at Yuanlin and caused settlement of building foundations and filling in of water wells fromsand boils. The earthquake occurred along the Chelongpu Fault (traditional Chinese: 車籠埔斷層; pinyin: Chēlóngpǔ duàncéng) in the western part of the island of Taiwan. The fault stretches along the foothills of the Central Mountains in Nantou County and Taichung County (now part of Taichung City). Some sections of land near the fault were raised as much as 7 m (23 ft). Near Dongshih, near the northern end of the fault, a 7 m (23 ft) high waterfall was created by the earthquake.

Damage

Damage caused by the earthquake included 2,415 deaths, 29 missing, 11,305 severely wounded, with 51,711 buildings completely destroyed, 53,768 buildings severely damaged, and a total of NT$300 billion (US$10 billion) worth of damage. Power was cut to a large proportion of the island, due to damage to power stations, transmission stations, and the automatic shutdown of Taiwan's three nuclear power plants, which were restarted two days later. National electricity provider Taipower stated that a day after the quake power had been restored to 69% of the country. 102 major bridges were badly damaged, with many having to be torn down. The Central Cross-Island Highway, at the time the only major complete route across the mountains in central Taiwan, was badly damaged. Subsequent storm damage and the high cost of restoration means that the highway remains closed as of 2009 and is not expected to be reopened. There were a total of 132 landslides during the main quake and the aftershocks, some causing loss of life as rockfalls crushed houses. 870 schools suffered damage, with 125 severely damaged, closing many down for months or even permanently in a few cases.

More information can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/921_earthquake


CREDITS: WIKIPEDIA

921 Earthquake Museum

The very first day of the trip

The 28th of May was the day of departure from Singapore to Taipei scheduled from 12.20pm to 5.05pm. I was filled with anxiety as I clutched the handle of my luggage and headed for the check-in counters and  waved goodbye to my parents, and exchanged a few hugs and kisses. Many of my tour mates were already gathered together as we were given a last briefing before passing through the immigration counters. It was truly a memorable experience and was significant as we were now given the authority to venture and take greater responsibilities in time to come. By then it was already clear that I had to learn to take care of myself during the next eight days and treasure the experiences I was about to go through....
It was a long flight from Singapore to Taipei which took about a good 4 hours. It was already evening by the time we arrived. Before we knew it, our stomachs were growling and we immediately set off to a nearby buffet restaurant where we tucked in.
Halfway though the buffet a relatively large cake was brought into the restaurant and it was only then we realized it was Dwain's birthday! We celebrated with much energy and spirit before savoring the appetizing and lip-smaking fruit cake.    
After dinner, it was a long journey to Taichung where we checked into Plaza International Hotel.

Welcome!

Welcome to the official blog of the Taiwan Trip which took place during 28/05 to 2/06. I will put in my utmost effort to keep it updated, and briefly describe the events that occurred during the trip. Pictures will be uploaded very frequently during the process of progressing the blog to greater heights. Communication through the FaceBook group will be most vital as well as the email as stated in the profile tab. I hope that you will have an enjoyable time reading the blog posts. Your interaction is most crucial for the progress of this blog.