A Taipei court’s ruling on a lawsuit over a 2011 mountaineering death has sparked controversy because the judge blamed inadequate efforts by firefighter rescue teams and awarded the victim’s family NT$2.67 million (US$86,685) in compensation.
It was a precedent-setting ruling, marking the first time official rescuers have been ordered to compensate a victim’s family.
The defendants, Nantou County Fire Department officials, said after Wednesday’s decision that they would appeal the ruling because it was wrong to fault rescuers, adding that the verdict was very detrimental to society.
Photo provided by Chang’s family
Nantou County Commissioner Lin Ming-chen (林明溱) yesterday vowed to appeal the ruling to protect the rights of firefighters who undertook the search-and-rescue mission.
The case concerned the death of Chang Po-wei (張博崴), a student at Chung Shan Medical University, who headed into the mountains alone on Feb. 27, 2011, to climb the 3,341m Baigu Mountain (白姑大山) in the Hsuehshan Range (雪山山脈).
Chang called his girlfriend on his cellphone the next day, saying he had gotten lost on the mountain trails, but did not ask her to report him missing.
Photo: Chang Hsiao-ti, Taipei Times
There was no further contact with Chang, and on March 1, the authorities initiated a search-and-rescue operation for him.
The operation lasted 51 days and involved more than 600 people, including local police and firefighter units, troops, Aboriginal villagers and volunteer rescuers from mountaineering clubs.
On April 20, Chang’s body was found in a mountain gully by Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書), a veteran mountaineering guide hired by Chang’s parents to conduct a search.
Chang’s parents believe their son might have lived if he had been found earlier, and blamed the rescue units from the public sector for failing to locate him. They filed a lawsuit seeking NT$6.65 million in compensation, blaming the Nantou County police and fire departments, the National Fire Agency and the Forestry Bureau office in the region, along with several other police units.
The ruling exonerated all the defendants except for the local firefighter units, who were ordered to pay compensation.
However, most commentators and mountain rescuers said the ruling was unjustified because it blamed the wrong party, and that the victim himself committed the most crucial mistake by venturing into the mountains alone, breaking a cardinal rule of mountaineering.
Nantou County Fire Department Director Lin Tsung-chi (林聰吉) said his firefighters felt maligned by the ruling, especially because everyone had made tremendous efforts, placing themselves at great risk in the unpredictable weather conditions and dangerous mountain terrain during the search.
One firefighter said he would not undertake rescue missions in the future, saying it is a thankless task that puts him at risk of being sued.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
RSS