Investigators from the Taipei Prosecutors' Office visited the construction site of the Taipei Financial Center yesterday, where five workers died after Sunday's earthquake.
Prosecutors are attempting to determine whether negligence contributed to the workers' deaths.
Sunday's quake -- which measured 6.8 on the Richter scale at its epicenter outside Hualien -- shook loose two massive cranes perched atop the 56th floor of what is to be a 101-story skyscraper.
PHOTO: SUNG CHIH-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Two crane operators died. Three others fell or were struck by pieces of the crane and other falling debris.
The temblor registered 5 on the Richter scale in Taipei, where most of the damage occurred.
"More details will be available after we've studied the information we gathered during our inspection," prosecutor Lo Jung-chien (羅榮乾) said.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Lo inspected the building -- which is expected to be the tallest in the world when completed in 2004 -- floor by floor with prosecutors Cheng Ti-sheng (鄭堤升) and Chen Chung-yen (陳重言) yesterday.
Lo said they were unable to reach the 56th floor because no stairs were available.
"Construction work will be on hold until thorough safety inspections are completed," Lo said.
Work on the building was originally scheduled to be completed by late next year, but construction has been delayed due to several safety concerns, including the tower's close proximity to a nearby fault line.
Among the quake's victims were crane operators Chen Yu-chen (陳又禎) and Chen Hsin (陳信陽).
Construction workers Chen Jin-shuei (陳錦水) and Lin Chien-cheng (林建成) were believed to have been struck by one of the cranes as it fell.
"One second my brother [Lin] was working right next to me on the 52nd floor," said Lin Chien-yu (
Sun Tung-yin (
Lu Qiou-long (盧秋隆), the taxi driver whose cab was crushed by one of the falling cranes, was listed in stable condition at Taipei Medical University Hospital yesterday. An international news agency erroneously reported that Lu had been killed.
Also yesterday, investigators from the Shihlin Prosecutors' Office visited a four-story apartment building on Chengte Road. Sunday's quake left the building partially collapsed and jutting out dangerously toward the street.
Shihlin prosecutor Chen Kuo-ming (
Seven residents were trapped in the building for three hours after the quake. None of their injuries were said to be serious.
"We want to find out why this building was seriously damaged while surrounding buildings stood through the quake just fine," Chen said. "We will determine the cause [of the collapse] and see if any oversight was involved after we study the information we gathered during the inspection [yesterday]."
The Taipei City government has ordered the building torn down within the next two days.
Meanwhile, eight-year old Kao Pong-chieh (
"We see signs of improvement, though he's still in a coma," Chang Yu-lin (
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS