The Maokong Gondola system experienced another equipment malfunction yesterday afternoon, forcing Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) to shut down the system for about four hours to inspect it.
The incident happened at Corner Two Station when TRTC workers heard some unusual noise on the headstock of a wheel, and the company immediately sent all passengers to nearby stations at 3:10pm before shutting down the system for inspections in order to prevent visitors from being trapped mid-air, the TRTC said.
The cable car resumed service at 7pm after the problem was fixed.
The incident happened only days after an equipment failure at the Corner One Station last Saturday caused a breakdown and left 323 visitors trapped in the cabins for about two hours.
Taipei City Government said that before Saturday's breakdown, a construction consultant had also heard some unusual noise in the morning, which was believed to be related to the equipment failure.
The service was also temporarily canceled at noon yesterday due to a thundershower, and resumed at 2:20pm before being canceled again for mechanical problems.
Earlier yesterday, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) once again shrugged off growing concerns over the safety of the system, insisting that the preliminary inspection found no urgent reason to halt operations.
"We continue to regard passengers' safety as our first priority," he said at Taipei City Hall.
Hau said the city government is demanding its departments, TRTC and POMA of France, the system's builder, to present an inspection and evaluation report on the system as soon as possible.
Taipei City Secretariat Deputy Director Yang Hsi-an (
While director of Taipei City's information department, Yang Hsiao-tung (
"Those passengers were trapped mid-air for more than two hours on such a hot day. It's reasonable to ask for more than NT$10,000," DPP Taipei City Councilor Lee Wen-ying (李文英) said at Taipei City Council.
TRTC gave NT$1,058 and free tickets to each of the 323 visitors after the breakdown on Saturday.
Chen Po-ching (陳柏菁), a Taipei City Consumer Protection Ombudsman, agreed that passengers deserved better compensation, and suggested that they should apply for national compensation.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires