A visit to the top of Lover’s Tower in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Tamsui District (淡水) on Tuesday night nearly turned into a sunrise viewing expedition after the tower elevator broke down, trapping nine people for more than six hours.
The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a report from the tower’s maintenance team at 1:55am yesterday that nine people were trapped on the tower’s observation platform.
The maintenance team said the elevator had failed about 9pm the previous night and they tried for five hours to fix it before calling for help.
As many as 52 fire department personnel and 13 fire trucks were dispatched and firefighters climbed up the tower to rescue the passengers.
The first person brought down was a 48-year-old man surnamed Yang (楊), who reached the ground at 3:46am. The last person came down at 5:17am.
The fire department said that eight people — five women and three men — and a tower employee in her 20s had been trapped. Although most of them were still in shock after the incident, no one had been hurt.
“The first thing I wanted to do was run to a restroom,” a man, surnamed Chen (陳), said after being rescued.
The 100m-high tower in the Fisherman’s Wharf park is managed by the Fullon Hotels and Resorts.
The observation platform can hold 80 people at one time and gives visitors a 360-degree view of the surrounding area.
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