Either the Taipei Dome (台北大巨蛋) or its neighboring shopping mall should be demolished, Taipei Deputy Mayor Charles Lin (林欽榮) said yesterday, as he presented the results of the city’s safety inspection commission into the Dome’s evacuation plans.
Computer analysis of the evacuation plans found that the construction of a large shopping mall adjoining the Dome would prevent the site from being evacuated within 15 minutes.
In addition to increasing the difficulty of evacuating the Dome itself, the city’s computer model found that the shopping mall would be difficult to evacuate, with exits remaining clogged a full hour after an evacuation began.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Lin attributed the results to overbuilding on the construction site by contractor Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設), with the area occupied by buildings increasing from 46 percent in the initial plan put forward in 2004 to 54.5 percent at present.
“An area equal to five Sogos has been added to the complex,” Lin said, referring to the Taipei Pacific Sogo Department Store (太平洋崇光百貨) shopping mall. “Excessive additional building space has caused the Taipei Sports and Cultural Park to become highly dangerous and a potential disaster area.”
He said that the city’s analysis found that the open space surrounding the Dome complex could only hold 60,000 people, far fewer than the estimated 140,000 people who could be inside the buildings during an emergency.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei City Government
He added that the lack of space would also prevent fire trucks from attending a disaster at the site.
“The site design would crowd everyone onto [neighboring] Guangfu S Road and Zhongxiao E Road,” Lin said. “In that event, how can rescue operations be conducted?”
Lin said that while the city “respected” the Ministry of the Interior Construction and Planning Agency’s approval of site safety plans, it questioned whether a truly rigorous analysis had been conducted, given the lack of clear national standards for evaluating a structure as large as the Taipei Dome.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
He said Farglory had failed to conduct a comprehensive analysis of evacuation procedures for the entire complex, while setting an unrealistic evacuation objective of having all of the spectators out of their seats within eight minutes in a “preliminary” evacuation, compared with the 15-minute complete evacuation standard used in Japan.
Lin said that Farglory also incorporated other numerous problematic assumptions into their model, including failing to take into consideration the obstacle Dome seating would present to fleeing spectators.
He said the firm made an unrealistic calculation of how quickly fleeing spectators would be able to escape the structure and also inflated the amount of “open space” around the structure by incorporating stairways and failing to subtract space which would be needed for rescue operations.
While Farglory’s analysis only involves an “ordinary” evacuation, the city conducted an “emergency” analysis, he said.
Lin also cited the ease with which a fire could spread throughout the complex as a major concern, calling the two stories of parking beneath the site which connects the different buildings “unprecedented.”
A fire within the parking lot would be extremely difficult to reach and extinguish, while it could easily spread throughout the complex, he said.
Given the safety problems unearthed, the commission recommended that either the Dome itself or the neighboring mall should be demolished to provide more open space for an emergency evacuation, he said, adding that the site’s underground parking should also be sealed off.
The complex’s other buildings would be unaffected.
Lin declined to comment on the effect the city’s report would have on ongoing negotiations with Farglory, adding that the negotiations were the responsibility of a separate committee headed by Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基).
Teng refused to respond to reporters’ questions, instead releasing a statement saying that as long as there were public safety concerns the city would not allow the complex to begin operations.
The Taipei City Government launched a safety investigation into the Dome after Farglory refused to agree to demands for concessions during a renegotiation of the terms of the contract.
The Taipei Department of Sports said that the Taipei Gymnasium could serve as the main site for the 2017 Universiade if the Taipei Dome is unavailable.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS