On Saturday, at least 156 people were killed and scores more were injured in a stampede at a Halloween celebration in Seoul.
In view of the tragedy, critics are questioning the safety and emergency response plan of the Taipei Dome, a project which has been caught in controversy, and is unfinished due to a halt in construction due to years of legal wrangling. Former Taipei Department of Urban Development commissioner Lin Jou-min (林洲民) posted “An open letter to the Taipei mayoral candidates” on Facebook, revealing that the Taipei City Government has “rigged” the simulation system to pass a security review.
In the letter, Lin explained two glaring loopholes in the dome’s computer simulation and modeling of a disaster scenario. One, regarding emergency exits, showed that the “local familiarity” parameter should have been set to “off” instead of “on,” as most people pay little attention to exit routes when they enter a building. Second, for setting an emergency context, the “impatient” signal should have been set to “on” not “off,” as people usually panic when disaster strikes. Despite the city government’s claims that the dome is safe, they have been made based on manipulated simulations.
In response to the letter, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that he has “complete confidence” in the Taipei Dome, but added that the dome would follow standard operating procedures (SOP) and would undergo pressure tests during its trial runs.
Although the dome has a different context to that of Seoul’s Halloween tragedy, the events in South Korea provided an opportunity for Taiwan to conduct a thorough review of its public facilities.
The Taipei Dome needs to be capable of withstanding various disasters, as well as ensuring the safety of its visitors. As the purpose of the computer simulation is to hypothesize worst-case scenarios, to “rig” the system is to overlook extreme possibilities rather than preparing for potential dangers.
As the Taipei Dome has been under construction for a decade and undergone several reviews, this kind of tampering could not have been a mistake, but a deliberate effort to make things easier for the project’s contractor, Farglory Group. Other scandals such as replacing “difficult” review members have shown that the Taipei City Government has been playing with people’s lives, while acting in Farglory’s favor when dealing with bureaucratic frustrations.
Taiwan has seen its fair share of accidents over the past few years. In 2020, a fire broke out at Cashbox Partyworld KTV in Taipei, leaving five dead and 44 injured, which led to the requirement that karaoke venues have fire protection systems. This year, Hsinchu Baseball Stadium was closed indefinitely after complaints that its infield soil was too soft and had caused several injuries during games. Negligence of safety precautions and sloppy reviews can have dire consequences.
Ko, who evaded responsibility by claiming that the government has been “following the SOP,” should stop hiding behind his catchphrase, respond to Lin’s allegations or provide the public with concrete evidence of the dome’s safety.
No one wants to see a replay of the tragedy in South Korea. It is up to the elected Taipei mayor to ensure that the dome meets every requirement before it is officially opened.
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
On Monday, a group of bipartisan US senators arrived in Taiwan to support the nation’s special defense bill to counter Chinese threats. At the same time, Beijing announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to visit China, a move to make the KMT a pawn in its proxy warfare against Taiwan and the US. Since her inauguration as KMT chair last year, Cheng, widely seen as a pro-China figure, has made no secret of her desire to interact with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and meet with Xi, naming it a
A delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials led by Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is to travel to China tomorrow for a six-day visit to Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing, which might end with a meeting between Cheng and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The trip was announced by Xinhua news agency on Monday last week, which cited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤) as saying that Cheng has repeatedly expressed willingness to visit China, and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and Xi have extended an invitation. Although some people have been speculating about a potential Xi-Cheng
The ongoing Iran conflict is putting Taiwan’s energy fragility on full display — the island of 23 million people, home to the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing, is highly dependent on imported oil and gas, especially that from the Middle East. In 2025, 69.6 percent of Taiwan’s crude oil and 38.7 percent of liquified natural gas were sourced from the Middle East. In the same year, 62 percent of crude oil and 34 percent of LNG to Taiwan went through the Strait of Hormuz. Taiwan’s state-run oil company CPC Corp’s benchmark crude oil price (70 percent Dubai, 30 percent Brent)
RSS