As most people took shelter under the security of four walls and a roof over their heads during the typhoon, four inmates of a Taitung prison opted to do the very opposite.
The four, serving sentences from 13 years to life, used the stormy weather as cover and successfully escaped late Tuesday night.
Police have launched a manhunt and prosecutors and the Ministry of Justice have begun an investigation. The ministry said yesterday that, as yet, there was no indication that the prisoners had inside help.
Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (
The four inmates, who fled the Taiyuan Vocational Training Institute (
According to the justice ministry, the escape was not discovered until a patrol at 11:05pm found the inmates' room empty.
The escape was estimated to have taken place some time between 10:30pm and 11:00pm.
The inmates are thought to have used a metal bar torn from a bed to break the concrete encasing the steel rebar on a window, creating a gap just wide enough for a person to get through.
"The constant howling of the wind and banging of flying objects caused by the typhoon throughout the evening was so loud that the hammering by the inmates went unheard by the prison staff," acting warden Huang Yu-ching (黃有經) said.
Attached to the window was a rope made of torn bed sheets tied together. The fugitives used the makeshift rope to descend from their cell on the second floor to the prison garden, prison officials said.
The four then ran across the garden to another area of the prison where the security level was lower; a security gate divides the two areas.
According to Huang, the gate had not been completely closed because of fears that the strong wind might damage it.
The four climbed the 2.5m prison wall -- topped by barbed wire -- by piling plastic garbage boxes on top of each other.
Taitung police, alerted the prison authorities, immediately set up roadblocks and searched for the fugitives throughout the night.
The justice minister visited the director-general of the National Police Administration, Wang Jinn-wang (王進旺), yesterday morning to ask for help in apprehending the fugitives. Wang promised that the police would do all they could.
Chen was enraged by the incident, calling it "inconceivable."
This is the third time that inmates have either escaped or tried to escape since early May.
"Three times in three months, -- these are clear signs that the management at our correctional facilities is seriously flawed," Chen said.
The Taitung District Prosecutors' Office has set up a special task force headed by the district prosecutor-general to begin to try to assign criminal blame for the escape.
The justice ministry has also formed an investigative group to look into what officials at the correctional facility should be held responsible for. The group is headed by administrative vice minister Yen Da-ho (
The justice ministry's investigative group will go to the prison this morning, officials said.
As of press time, the four fugitives were still on the run.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)