The Kaohsiung District Court on Friday approved an appeal by the city government for a provisional attachment order for the assets of a petrochemical company thought to be involved in the deadly gas explosions that rocked Kaohsiung on July 31 and Aug. 1.
The ruling came two days after the city government applied for the provisional attachment order against LCY Chemical Corp seeking NT$1.9 billion (US$63.3 million) to prevent the firm from hiding assets to avoid potential compensation payments to the victims of the blasts, which killed 30 people and left more than 300 injured.
Kaohsiung Information Bureau Director-General Ting Yun-kong (丁允恭) said the city government had not yet received a court document stating the ruling. As soon as the document is in hand, it is to allocate funds for the required deposit for the attachment, he said, describing the court order as “the best way to protect citizens’ rights and benefits.”
In addition, the district court also approved applications by Chen Kuan-jung (陳冠榮), head of a self-help association of the families of people killed in the gas explosions, and Chen Chao-hui (陳昭惠), a representative of the families of the firefighters who died in the accident, to freeze NT$4.5 million and NT$2 million respectively of LCY Chemical’s assets.
Leaks of propene, also known as propylene, from a pipeline owned by LCY Chemical are thought to be the cause of the devastating explosions that ripped up a total of 6km of roadway in the southern city.
Meanwhile, LCY Chemical said it is to open a bank account for the deposit of NT$650 million as a fund for possible compensation payments to the victims.
The proposal to set up the compensation fund was approved at a company board meeting earlier in the day, the listed company said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching