Cashbox Partyworld Co Ltd (錢櫃) representatives yesterday bowed at a news conference to offer their apologies to the public for a deadly fire that broke out at one of the popular karaoke chain’s outlets in Taipei on Sunday.
The company has suspended its business operations in Taiwan for one week to improve fire and building safety at its outlets, Cashbox chief executive officer Lien Fu-tsai (連福財) said.
Cashbox operates 17 KTV outlets in Taiwan. Prior to yesterday’s announcement, six of them had already been ordered to suspend operations for three days after failing safety inspections by local governments on Monday.
Photo: Yang Ya-min, Taipei Times
The fire broke out on Sunday morning at Cashbox KTV’s outlet on Linsen N Road, leaving five dead, more than 40 injured and one person in a critical condition.
Lien said that the family of each victim would receive NT$1 million (US$33,293) on top of NT$100,000 that the company had given them earlier.
The company would also pay other compensation to the families of the victims, and fully cover the medical costs of those injured, he added.
Cashbox board director Yen Chih-ching (嚴智徑) offered his apologies to the public on behalf of chairman Lien Tai-sheng (練台生), who did not attend the news conference.
Yen denied local media reports that Lien Tai-sheng had contacted Taipei City Government officials after the fire.
At a separate news conference at the Taipei Exchange, Cashbox chief financial officer and spokeswoman Eve Kao (高心華) said that she could not report on the company’s potential losses in monetary terms.
The estimated losses would be clear next month, she said.
Cashbox reported NT$212.62 million in consolidated revenue last month, down 28.35 percent from a year earlier, as the COVID-19 outbreak affected business, Kao said.
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