President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Premier William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed their condolences to the families of five firefighters and two Thai workers killed in a fire at a factory in Taoyuan on Saturday night, and instructed government agencies to do their best to help the families.
Lai offered his sympathies over the loss of the firefighters in the line of duty, and said that no effort would be spared in the treatment of seven other firefighters who were injured in the blaze, Cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said in a statement.
The cause is being investigated, but a Taoyuan Fire Department official said the factory contained a large and diverse amount of chemicals, including highly flammable and explosive materials.
Photo: Wei Chin-chun, Taipei Times
Ambulances, as well as a total of 189 firefighters and 67 fire trucks were sent to the scene, Hsu said.
The National Fire Agency formed a disaster response task force on Saturday night, while the Environmental Protection Administration, the Cabinet’s Office of Disaster Management and the Taoyuan City Government dispatched personnel to help with relief efforts, Hsu said.
Lai spoke by telephone with Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), who was at the scene to coordinate firefighting and relief efforts, and instructed the fire agency to provide their full support.
The five firemen were killed after becoming trapped under heavy machinery that impeded their escape, Cheng said.
Tsai has instructed government agencies to provide the best medical care to the injured firemen and offer the “highest possible compensation” to the families of those who died in the line of duty, Presidential Office spokesman Sydney Lin (林鶴明) said.
Huang Wei-chin (黃維金), chairman of Chin-Poon Industrial Co (敬鵬工業) — the company that owns the factory — yesterday afternoon led company managers in offering their condolences to the families of the fallen firefighters at a ceremony at Yu Dian Yuan funeral hall in the city’s Jhongli District (中壢).
Huang paid compensation to the firefighters’ families and promised he would cooperate fully with investigators to discover the cause.
Additional reporting by Wei Chin-yun
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