The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) yesterday said it is seeking compensation from the manufacturer of a Puyuma train model involved in a deadly derailment in October last year and a third-party quality certification provider.
The Japanese manufacturer, Nippon Sharyo, a subsidiary of Central Japan Railway Co, is responsible for the train’s design flaws, while British certification provider Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance failed to pinpoint the problems, a TRA official said.
TRA’s lawyers are drafting a letter to Sumitomo Corp, the bidder for the procurement project, asking it to pass the information to Nippon Sharyo, said Sung Hung-kang (宋鴻康), head of the TRA’s Rolling Stock Department.
Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times
The TRA plans is to take the same action against Lloyd’s, Sung said, adding that the letters are expected to be sent by the end of this month.
If the two companies accept their share of responsibility, the TRA would proceed to seek compensation, Sung said.
Nippon Sharyo has admitted a design flaw in all 19 of the Puyuma trains it sold to Taiwan, which prevents the train’s alert system from contacting the control station.
As a result, train dispatchers are not aware when the automatic train protection (ATP) system, which prevents trains from speeding, is turned off, unless the driver informs them.
The defective system played an important role in the Oct. 21 crash, when Puyuma Express No. 6432 derailed in Yilan County, while traveling at nearly twice the permissible speed limit as it entered a curve, leaving 18 people dead and 200 people injured.
The tragedy was a result of many factors, the worst being Puyuma driver Yu Chen-chung (尤振仲) turning off the ATP while trying to accelerate the train after detecting power problems he believed to have been caused by a malfunctioning air compressor, investigators have said.
Yu was at the time too distracted dealing with the power problem to report what he had done in a timely manner, the investigators said, adding that the accident could have been avoided if the ATP had been properly connected to the central control room.
Lloyd’s is also to blame for failing to examine the trains and their maintenance manuals thoroughly, and did a poor job in finding out inconsistencies in the Chinese translation of mechanical terms, Sung said.
Sung added that the TRA has kept a NT$300 million (US$9.7 million) performance bond on hold since the delivery of the trains in 2012, because some of the glitches remain unresolved.
While the crash resulted in administrative punishments for 20 former TRA officials and indirectly led to the resignation of then-minister of transportation and communication Wu Hong-mo (吳宏謀) in December, his successor, Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), reopened the case last month, saying he felt that the penalties were too light.
A second round of recommended punishments were completed by the Railway Bureau later that month, but Lin rejected them again because the content was the same.
Lin then assigned Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) to come up with a new list, which Wang yesterday said has been completed and is awaiting approval by the ministry and the Executive Yuan before being made public.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods