From Saturday night through early yesterday morning, two people were killed and one injured at three separate railway accidents, which disrupted the journeys of thousands of passengers on the first two days of the Dragon Boat Festival long weekend.
The first accident occurred on Saturday at 7:41pm in Taoyuan County, while two others occurred at 5:14am and 6:59am yesterday morning in Kaohsiung and Changhua County respectively, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said.
The accident on Saturday night happened when a northbound Tzuchiang-class express train from Pingtung to Cidu (七堵) hit and killed a man walking on the railway tracks as the train passed through a section in Taoyuan County.
Two-way operations on the section were not resumed until 9:04pm, disrupting travel for about 9,420 passengers, the TRA said.
In Kaohsiung, at a railway crossing between Kaohsiung Railway Station and Sintsoying (新左營) Railway Station, a bicycle rider fell onto the tracks yesterday morning.
Fortunately, a northbound commuter train stopped in time and the cyclist sustained only minor injuries to their legs.
The TRA stopped further operation of the commuter train from Sintsoying to Chiayi stations and passengers were asked to disembark and get on another TRA train.
A southbound Chukang-class train heading from Changhua to Chaojhou (潮州), in Pingtung County, struck a woman trespassing on a railway crossing in Changhua County in the third incident killing her instantly.
The accident affected 14 trains and the 3,690 passengers on board, the TRA said.
In other developments, the National Freeway Bureau said there was severe traffic congestion on both the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1) and Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3) yesterday morning because of three rear-end collisions.
The first one happened at 10:30am near the 18km marker in a northbound lane on Freeway No. 3. The second occurred on a southbound lane at the 46.6km mark at 10:48am.
The third one occurred at 11:12am in a northbound lane on Freeway No. 1 at the 91km mark.
All three accidents led to heavy congestion on the two main national freeways.
The bureau also reported an increase in northbound traffic yesterday afternoon on Freeway No. 1, Freeway No. 3 and Chiang Wei-shui Freeway (Freeway No. 5), leading to heavy congestion in several sections.
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