The driver of a tour bus that crashed and caught fire in Taoyuan, killing all on board, was drunk when the accident happened, prosecutors said yesterday.
In the worst road accident ever to hit Chinese visitors to Taiwan, an entire tour group of 24 died when their bus was engulfed in flames and rammed through a freeway barrier last week.
Tests on the remains of the driver — who died in the crash, alongside a Taiwanese tour guide — found an alcohol concentration of 1.075 milligrams per liter (mg/L), prosecutors said in a statement.
Photo: Chou Min-hung, Taipei Times
That put the driver, Su Ming-cheng (蘇明成), at more than four times the legal limit of 0.25mg/L.
“He was drunk driving — a very severe case of drunk driving,” Taoyuan District Prosecutor Wang Yi-wen (王以文) said.
The discovery means the probe is to focus more on the driver’s mental and physical state, he added.
Prosecutors are delving into Su’s habits, diet and social circle to determine why he might have been driving over the legal limit, Wang said.
Tests did not find any traces of drugs or sedatives in his system, the statement said.
Prosecutors have already said that five bottles of gasoline were found on the bus, despite regulations banning inflammable substances in vehicles.
Prosecutors have searched the driver’s home twice, and questioned his relatives and coworkers.
Local media reports said that Su, the main breadwinner in his family, struggled financially and interacted little with his colleagues.
The bus carrying the tourists from Dalian, China, was heading to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Tuesday last week after the group had completed an eight-day trip to the nation.
Distraught relatives who came to Taiwan to identify the bodies of the victims questioned why none of them were able to escape through the emergency exits when the fire ripped through the bus.
One eyewitness said trapped passengers inside the bus had been pounding on the windows as it careered off the road.
Officials in Beijing have demanded that Taiwan take measures to ensure the safety of Chinese visitors.
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