Police and rail officials denied responsibility yesterday after a truck smashed into a train overpass, damaging the track above and leading to a derailment 30 minutes later.
It was the second rail crash in less than three weeks.
Two people were injured in the accident, and rail traffic between Taichung and Changhwa was paralyzed after the crash yesterday. The Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA, 台灣鐵路局) announced that normal rail service would resume at 6am today.
PHOTO: SUN YI-FANG, TAIPEI TIMES
The passenger train was out of service at the time, but the engineer, conductor and the truck driver were injured in the incident.
The container truck, at around
4:50am, crashed into a rail overpass about 200m from the Taichung Train Station, bending the rail tracks on the bridge. The 4.2m-high truck crashed and stuck under the bridge as it tried to pass under it. The height limit of the bridge is 3.7m.
PHOTO: SUN YI-FANG, TAIPEI TIMES
At 5:20am, as a Tzu Chiang express train crossed the bridge, its nine coaches derailed and careened into one of the station platforms.
"To my shock I discovered that the rail track had deformed into an "S" shape about 100 meters before we reached the bent rail. I pulled the emergency break and the train lost control and derailed. We didn't receive any warning," train engineer Su Shih-shui (蘇石水) said yesterday after he was sent to the hospital.
Su recieved three stitches in his right arm.
The train was out of service when the accident occurred, carrying only a crew of three. The train's conductor, Wu Chin-chuan (吳進傳), and the truck driver Hsu Chieh-shi (徐結士), were sent to Cheng Ching Hospital (澄清醫院) in Taichung City. Although the doctor at the hospital said that the injured were not in critical condition, they were being held for further observation.
The police opened a full investigation into the accident yesterday.
The accident damaged two electric polls, one platform and part of a building at the Taichung Train Station.
"When the accident [with the truck] happened, the police didn't realize it's possible impact on the rail track, so we were not informed," said Chang Hsien-chang (
Seeking to deflect blame for the mishap, Chang said, "With all the damage caused by the derailment -- a result of the violation of traffic regulations by a truck driver -- the TRA is actually the victim in this accident," he said.
The head of Taichung's West District police station sought to dispel any charges of police responsibility, saying, "We were sent to record the accident, not knowing that the railway line was damaged."
Both the West District police station and the Taichung City First Police Station, which informed the former of the accident, told the Taipei Times last night that they didn't know who had initially informed police of the accident.
The TRA yesterday arranged shuttle buses to transfer passengers between Taichung and Changhwa.
Meanwhile, two cars of a construction train loaded with logs derailed at 3.30pm yesterday on a level crossing near Kunyang (
Although no injuries were reported, three southbound trains were delayed because of the incident. Normal service on the that line resumed at 5:30pm yesterday.
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s