The death early yesterday of a woman injured in Friday’s gas explosion in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) raised the number of fatalities to two, according to a hospital in Taipei.
The 59-year-old woman, the only victim sent to Wan Fang Hospital after the explosion, died of her burns and cardiopulmonary failure, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The woman had second and third-degree burns over almost 90 percent of her body, the spokeswoman added.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
The blast in the woman’s third-floor apartment caused a fire in the high-rise residential building, according to an initial investigation.
About a dozen other people were injured.
The woman’s 16-month-old grandson was the first casualty. Her other grandchild — a three-year-old girl — suffered second and third-degree burns over 90 percent of her body and remained in critical condition.
Building tenants said they had smelled natural gas on Thursday afternoon and alerted the gas company. Workers sent to the building for inspection did not “take the problem seriously,” residents said on Friday, adding that the workers had described the smell as a “natural biogas” issue.
The gas company involved, Shin Shin Natural Gas Co (欣欣天然氣), cut off the supply of natural gas after the explosion and yesterday began checking its pipelines for breaches.
A prosecutor was at the site yesterday with personnel from the fire and police departments and the gas company to investigate the cause of the explosion.
The fire chief has said that the department will investigate whether the explosion involved a leak from the natural gas pipe leading into the apartments — which would be the responsibility of the gas company — or whether it occurred in the section of pipe inside the building — which would be the responsibility of the residents.
Meanwhile, the New Taipei City Fire Department said the death of the boy has been extremely hard on Chang Yi-peng (張一鵬), a firefighter from the department’s Ankang Precinct (安康) who blamed himself for not being able to save the boy in the house after rescuing the girl.
Chang rushed the three-year-old girl from the room first.
He said that his decision was based on the greatest odds of survival and that the home’s narrow interior did not allow him to carry out both children at once.
Chang’s colleagues said he has a two-year-old son and is expecting a daughter next month, so he could relate to the grief of the boy’s parents.
The fire department said the children’s parents are in the military; their mother serves as a lieutenant, junior grade, in the navy’s Tamsui District (淡水) base and their father is a petty officer second class on a ship in Greater Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營).
Additional reporting by Wu Jen-chieh
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
RSS