Two buses collided in the 12.9km Hsuehshan Tunnel in northeastern Taiwan yesterday, causing two deaths and injuring more than 20 people, two of them seriously.
The collision, which occurred at 1:27pm, caused a passenger bus to catch fire after it was rear-ended by another bus at the 26km marker on the southbound side of Freeway No. 5 in the Hsuehshan Tunnel, which links New Taipei City (新北市) and Yilan County, police said.
The Directorate-General of Highways confirmed that the collision occurred after a tire blew out on a car in front of the first bus, forcing the bus driver, employed by Kamalan Bus (葛瑪蘭客運), to stomp on the brakes, catching the driver of the following bus by surprise.
Photo courtesy of the New Taipei City Fire Department
The second bus, owned by Capital Bus (首都客運), burst into flames after the collision, and the driver was killed in the fire, the agency said.
Firefighters extinguished the flames at 2:08pm, saying the injured, who mostly suffered from smoke inhalation, had been rushed to nearby hospitals.
The tunnel has been closed to traffic to facilitate rescue work, police said.
Photo: CNA
It was the most serious accident to occur in the tunnel since its opening in June 2006.
Considered a marvel of civil engineering and human perseverance, the tunnel took 15 years to complete.
National Freeway Bureau -Director-General Tseng Dar-jen (曾大仁) said one fire drill is held in the tunnel every season, with the most recent taking place on March 31 and April 1.
The drills focus on smoke and fume ventilation, and extinguishing flames, Tseng said.
Eight vehicle fires have -occurred in the tunnel. In all fires, the fire fighting team outsourced by the bureau — Shang Hung Gardening (尚宏園藝有限公司) — was able to put out the flames, Tseng said.
However, the fire from yesterday’s accident was too much for the gardening company to handle, and the bureau had to ask for help from fire stations in Yilan County and New Taipei City, Tseng said.
The Financial Supervisory Commission has directed insurance companies to help the victims and the family members of the deceased.
Miaoli-based Shang Hung -Gardening, which began -operations with less than NT$5 million (US$170,500) in paid-in capital, won a contract in 2010 to provide first-line firefighting services in the tunnel for three years.
Although the nearest the company had previously come to working on the national freeway system was the placement and maintenance of shrubs, hedges and flowers, its manager said at the time that his company was experienced enough to ensure the safety of the more than 40,000 vehicles that pass through the tunnel per day, adding that its firefighters were “very highly trained.”
Translation by Jake Chung, Staff Writer
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS