One man died and nine were injured yesterday after an unidentified gas seeped into the Alexander Health Club branch on Civic Boulevard in Taipei City.
After initial inspection, officials with the Taipei City Fire Department suspected that carbon monoxide poisoning was the cause of the accident.
"The amount of carbon monoxide was 239 ppm, much higher than the usual amount of 20 ppm. But we also detected 23.1 ppm of an unknown organic gas," said Hsiung Kuang-hua (熊光華), commissioner of the Fire Department.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
"We are still trying to identify what the organic gas is, and the cause of the fatality," he said.
Thirty-four gym members and 13 employees were evacuated.
The man who died was found unconscious near the shower room.
A doctor with Taiwan Adventist Hospital said the man was pronounced dead upon arrival, but he wouldn't confirm if the man died of gas poisoning.
"The man was a patient suffering from renal failure and uremia. We have to wait for his blood test to find out whether he died of carbon monoxide poisoning," the doctor said.
Yesterday was the gym's first business day after the Lunar New Year holiday.
Saying she was astonished by the accident, the gym's general manager, Tang Hsin-ru (
Some people who were using the gym at the time and some residents of the building that houses the club complained to the press that club officials had not asked them to evacuate the building immediately.
"It was about 7am that some people were reported affected by poison, but the gym still let users in at 10am," one member was quoted as saying by a local TV station.
Tang said the company will take full responsibility for the victims. She also said that the Alexander Health Club was suspending business at the Civil Boulevard location until the cause of the accident was discovered.
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