Eighteen people were killed and 171 injured yesterday after an eastbound Puyuma Express train, No. 6432, carrying 366 passengers, derailed at 4:50pm near the Sinma (新馬) Train Station in Yilan County, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said.
The agency had earlier put the death toll at 22, but at 10:45pm it lowered the number to 18.
All eight passenger cars jumped the tracks and five overturned, the TRA said.
Photo: CNA
Firefighters from Yilan County, New Taipei City and Keelung were dispatched, while the Ministry of National Defense deployed 120 military personnel, ambulances and other equipment to help with rescue efforts.
Most of the deaths were in the first car, a government spokesman said.
At a news conference in Taipei, TRA Director-General Jason Lu (鹿潔身) apologized for the derailment and said an emergency taskforce was established at 5pm, and that the agency’s operational safety committee would investigate the accident, the first major accident with the Puyuma Express service.
Photo: Wang Hsiu-ting, Taipei Times
Injured passengers were sent to St Mary’s Hospital Luodong, Luodong Bo-Ai Hospital, the Suao Branch of Taipei Veterans General Hospital and the Lanyang Branch of National Yang-Ming University Hospital, the TRA said.
A 43-year-old American woman was among the injured, officials said.
The Central Emergency Operation Center opened at 6pm, the TRA said.
Photo: Wang Hsiu-ting, Taipei Times
Puyuma Express No. 6432 entered operations at the end of 2011 and underwent major maintenance last year, the TRA said.
The accident occurred on a curve with a radius of 300m, but Puyuma Express trains are tiling trains designed to operate through curves at high speed, Lu said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Wu Hong-mo (吳宏謀) went to the accident site to oversee rescue operations, while the Directorate-General of Highways provided shuttle buses between Luodong Township (羅東) and Dongao Township (東澳) for other rail passengers affected by the derailment, which forced the TRA to suspend rail services along some portions of the east coast line.
Uni Air said that it would provide additional flights between Taipei and Hualien for travelers heading to the east coast.
The derailment is one of the worst accidents in TRA’s history.
On March 8, 1981, a northbound Tzuchiang Express train hit a gravel truck at a railway crossing, causing four cars to fall into a river, killing 30 passengers and injuring 130.
Additional reporting by agencies
This story has been updated since it was first published to amend the death toll.
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
SOUTH CHINA SEA? The Philippine president spoke of adding more classrooms and power plants, while skipping tensions with China over disputed areas Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday blasted “useless and crumbling” flood control projects in a state of the nation address that focused on domestic issues after a months-long feud with his vice president. Addressing a joint session of congress after days of rain that left at least 31 dead, Marcos repeated his recent warning that the nation faced a climate change-driven “new normal,” while pledging to investigate publicly funded projects that had failed. “Let’s not pretend, the people know that these projects can breed corruption. Kickbacks ... for the boys,” he said, citing houses that were “swept away” by the floods. “Someone has
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
RSS