At our office, we have a special name for Lanyu: “Godzilla Island” .
For those of you who don’t know (probably not many), Lanyu (Orchid Island) is the location of a radioactive waste dump site for the island’s nuclear power plants (I suppose).
Oh and here’s a lovely tidbit regarding Taiwan politics :
In 1974 the Atomic Energy Commission of the Republic of China selected Long Men (龍門) at the southern tip of Orchid Island as the site to build a “temporary” nuclear waste disposal facility. In reality, it was intended to store as much as 340,000 barrels (18,000 tons) of nuclear waste over a period of 50 years. The government deceived the Tao district commissioner, who was illiterate, that the government wanted to build a fish cannery and needed his signature to approve the project . In 1978 a harbor was built and construction of the nuclear storage facility began in 1980. During this whole time, the government continued its deception on the islanders until the island’s churchgoers found out the truth from mainland Taiwan news reports. Shipments of low and mid-level nuclear waste began arriving in May 1982 from Taiwan’s three nuclear power plants operated by state-owned Taipower. There are 97,672 barrels (over 4,800 tons) [1] stored on the island in 23 concrete trenches without permission.
