Pingtung county prosecutors yesterday launched an investigation into Friday's railway crash.
Chuang Jung-sung (莊榮松), spokesman for the Pingtung District Prosecutors' Office yesterday said "As yet, we have not identified any suspects, but it is possible that criminals stole the anchors to sell them to scrap iron dealers."
"It is also possible that Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) staff were involved in the incident because we have discovered that the perpetrators are very familiar with the workings of the railways," Chuang added.
He said that the TRA could not rule out the possibility that employees dissatisfied with the company damaged the tracks on purpose.
TRA's deputy director Chen Feng-nan (陳峰男) said another express train drove through the same section at 8:30pm on Friday night and it was likely that the perpetrators took advantage of a 76-minute lapse between services to sabotage the tracks.
The entire route is 1,100km in length, which made it difficult to maintain and preserve the condition of the tracks in all places at all times, he added.
Chuang said according to the examination of the site that was carried out yesterday, prosecutors suspected there was more than one person involved.
It was unlikely that one person acting alone could have removed more than eighty sets of spring anchors in the seventy minutes between the two train services, he said.
Chuang added that because there are no surveillance cameras along the tracks, they have no images of any suspects.
TRA's Taitung to Kaohsiung Southern Link Line has been vandalized six times since 2004.
Chen noted that another derailment occurred near the site around the same time of night last June, causing a Ziqiang (自強號) class train to leave the rails injuring 14 people.
Police arrested Lee Chung-hsing (李中興), 34, last October, who subsequently admitted that he had stolen anchors to sell as scrap metal. Lee, however denied involvement in the June incident.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan
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