Taiwan's air raid alert systems include sirens and text messages sent to residents. Photo: handout

Taiwan’s annual air defense drill to prepare the island against an aerial and missile offensive by the Chinese military will see expanded use of an island-wide air-raid alert system that, among other functions, will send text messages to civilians when a major blitz is imminent.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry revealed that the system, already tested last year in central and southern counties, would be tried out more extensively throughout the island this week during a simulated missile strike as part of a broader air defense drill.

The ministry said the drill, held alongside the annual Han Kuang anti-invasion exercise, is aimed at testing the coverage of civilian alert systems, checking whether they would be activated promptly to assist evacuation and rescues by first responders.

The Taiwanese military is of the view that it’s unlikely the People’s Liberation Army will launch an indiscriminate air strike or aerial bombing that targets urban centers, given the fact that the PLA favors precision strikes in its bid to recapture the self-ruled island.

However, Taiwan’s military strategists still stress the need to install extensive air-strike warning systems in major cities to alert residents to seek shelter – by hiding in nearby underground air-raid shelters, for example.

Dissemination of information via radio, television and internet has also been carefully coordinated. The focal point of the warning system is the capital city of Taipei, home to more than 3 million residents.

If the Defense Ministry declares a state of emergency due to attacks, invasion or simply what it deems a very high risk of military conflict, sirens will warn the public. The sirens are controlled by the Taiwanese army.

Other than the ongoing drill, there are annual or semi-annual test runs that are often held on commemorative dates, usually associated with World War II. There have also been some commemorative blarings during the memorial periods of some major disasters.

Another training method is to have fighter jets, including the F-16 and the Mirage 2000, as well as other military aircraft conduct emergency landing and takeoffs on some sections of national expressways in the island’s Changhua county when an air-raid warming is in force.

Join the Conversation

1080 Comments

  1. I think other site proprietors should take this website as an model, very clean and great user genial style and design, let alone the content. You are an expert in this topic!

  2. Hi my family member! I wish to say that this article is awesome, great written and come with approximately all significant infos. I would like to peer extra posts like this .

  3. Greetings! Quick question that’s completely off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My web site looks weird when browsing from my apple iphone. I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to resolve this issue. If you have any suggestions, please share. Appreciate it!

  4. Definitely believe that which you stated. Your favorite reason seemed to be on the web the simplest thing to be aware of. I say to you, I certainly get annoyed while people consider worries that they just don’t know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and also defined out the whole thing without having side-effects , people can take a signal. Will likely be back to get more. Thanks

  5. I do not even understand how I ended up right here, however I thought this submit used to be good. I don’t recognise who you are however certainly you are going to a famous blogger for those who are not already 😉 Cheers!

  6. Pretty nice post. I simply stumbled upon your weblog and wanted to say that I’ve truly loved surfing around your weblog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing on your rss feed and I’m hoping you write once more very soon!

  7. I have been surfing online more than three hours these days, but I never found any attention-grabbing article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for me. Personally, if all webmasters and bloggers made excellent content as you probably did, the internet shall be much more helpful than ever before.

  8. In this awesome design of things you actually receive a B- just for effort and hard work. Where you misplaced me was on all the facts. You know, people say, details make or break the argument.. And it couldn’t be more true at this point. Having said that, permit me reveal to you precisely what did do the job. The authoring is definitely pretty persuasive which is possibly why I am making an effort to opine. I do not really make it a regular habit of doing that. 2nd, whilst I can notice the leaps in reason you come up with, I am definitely not confident of how you appear to connect the ideas which in turn help to make the actual final result. For now I will, no doubt subscribe to your position but hope in the future you actually link your facts better.

  9. Hey there, You have done a fantastic job. I’ll certainly digg it and personally suggest to my friends. I am sure they will be benefited from this website.