Negligence was cause of flooding

The Taipei City Government's Department of Rapid Transit Systems and the MRT contractors must share responsibility for their negligence, which caused the flooding in Sanchung during Typhoon Aere, according to the final investigation report released yesterday by the Taiwan Professional Civil Engineers Association.

James Yu (余烈), the chairman of the association, which was selected as the independent party by the city and county governments to probe the cause of Sanchung's inundation, yesterday released its final investigation report into the flooding.

FLIMSY WALL

The report confirmed that the major cause of the flooding was the failure of the department and the contractors to build a retaining wall beside the MRT construction site in accordance with the original blueprints, but instead built a flimsy temporary retaining wall.

The retaining wall was supposed to have a thickness of 7.7m, but a wall only 18cm thick was installed, according to the investigation report.

The heavy rains brought by Typhoon Aere breached the temporary wall, submerging over one-third of Sanchung in water and leaving about 14,000 households with severe property damage.

"According to the contractors' testimonies, the reason for changing the blueprints was to accelerate the MRT construction," Yu said.

The three MRT contractors are the RSEA Engineering Corporation, Hwang Chang General Contractor Corporation and the Kajima Corporation from Japan.

"In addition to changing the blueprints without authorization, the investigation team also found that the departmental officials and contractors did not have enough knowledge of water conservancy and hydrology," Yu said. "They failed to fulfill the necessary inspection duties before typhoon season."

SHARED BURDEN

Therefore, Yu said, the association said the two parties that were in charge of the MRT construction should take equal responsibility for the flood.

After learning the investigation's results, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday afternoon announced a list of people who would face disciplinary action, punishing 19 city officials who were involved in the MRT construction by transfering them to other posts or entering demerits into their records.

The director of the department, Chang Chi-teh (常岐德), will be transferred to the Control Yuan for administrative investigations, Ma said.

However, Ma did not say whether he will dismiss Chang from his office, saying only he will properly dispose of Chang after the Control Yuan issues its investigation report on the incident.

As for the question of whether to discipline the former director of the department, Fan Liang-hsiu (范良鏽) -- as Chang has held the office for only a month -- Ma said that also depends on the Control Yuan's report.

Meanwhile, 72 officials from Sanchung boroughs that were affected by the flooding also organized a committee to ensure that they would obtain compensation from the city government.

Taipei County Deputy Commissioner Wu Zei-cheng (吳澤成) said that he hoped the city government would quickly settle compensation claims with Sanchung residents, but he also hoped residents would be patient with the application process, which he predicted would be quite lengthy.