Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu’s (陳菊) camp yesterday apologized and vowed to compensate residents after firecrackers set off by her motorcade to Tzukuan Township (梓官), Kaohsiung County, torched the top floors of three buildings on Tuesday night.
A fire broke out on the third floor of an electronics store after Chen’s motorcade left. The blaze spread to the top floors of two adjacent buildings. A witness was quoted by TVBS as saying that firecrackers set off by the motorcade flew into the store’s building seconds before the blaze broke out.
“We will verify the cause of the fire. No matter what the cause is, the campaign headquarters will do its best to take care of the matter,” said Chen Chi-yu (陳啟昱), a Chen campaign spokesman.
The three Greater Kaohsiung mayoral candidates are going all-out in the final days of the campaign, leading Chen to run into Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) and her staffers when seeking support from hikers on Shoushan (壽山) early yesterday morning.
Chen intended to shake hands with Huang, but Huang moved forward without greeting Chen. Huang later denied that she had refused to shake Chen’s hand, saying she had not seen the mayor.
Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興), who is running as an independent, returned to the county government seeking support. He dismissed criticism that he might be violating administrative impartiality by seeking support from county employees.
Yang said he had taken a leave of absence until the election, and the county government was a public place. Chen was welcome if she wanted to visit county staffers for support, he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
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