Golden Beach after (top), before (bottom). (Photo from reader) Golden Beach after (top), before (bottom). (Photo from reader)

Update: 10/21 6:20 p.m.

A member of Kaohsiung's 6th River Management Office surnamed Huang (黃) told Liberty times that a team from his bureau had planned the beach cleanup a month bin advance and denied trying to "blacken Han." He said that in addition to his team, students from Tainan's Sheng Kung Girl's High School also participated, resulting in about 100 volunteers combing the beach for trash on the beach that day.

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A publicized beach cleanup by Kuomintang (KMT) presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) was stymied on Sunday (Oct. 20) when an unknown group of people beat him to it, clearing the shore of refuse a day before his arrival.

Following a large campaign rally in Tainan City's Shueipingwun Park the night before, Han visited Tainan's Grand Mazu Temple and Luerhmen Mazu Temple Sunday morning, but a trip to clean up the city's Golden Beach had to be scrapped when he found, to his dismay, that someone had removed all the trash from the beach just before his visit.

According to Up Media, Han's camp had sent people to survey the beach for trash on Thursday and Friday. At that time, many discarded bottles, cans, plastic bags, aluminum foil, driftwood, Styrofoam chunks, and other refuse were seen strewn across the beach. However, when members of Han's campaign team checked the beach again on the eve of his visit, they found the beach had been completely cleared of all debris.



Trash seen on beach before cleanup. (Photo from reader)

Bewildered by the trash's sudden disappearance, Han's staff asked the Tainan City Government if anyone had applied to hold a beach cleanup over the past couple of days. However, the city said that no one had applied for such a permit, leaving the identities of those who had carried out the cleanup a mystery.

Han's camp accused the group of "deflating" the cleanup campaign by deliberately "tampering" with the beach, reported Liberty Times.