Five people died and 17 were injured yesterday morning at the Dali Railway Station in Ilan County when two locomotives running in tandem smashed into the side of a train that was leaving the station.
Only four of the passengers who were killed had been identified at press time. They were Lee Chia-ching (李佳錦), Chen Yi-wei (陳逸偉), Lee Su-ching (李素欽) and Chang Hsiao-ting (張曉婷). Lee Chia-chin died on the spot.
The Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) commuter train was departing from Shulin (
PHOTO: CNA
The 44-year-old engineer of the second train, Huanglin Chung-liang (
However, the train proceeded despite a warning signal and hit the commuter train between the second and third car.
The crash occurred as the nation prepares to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival.
Although the crash disrupted railway transportation along the east coast, Chang said that it should return to normal by this morning.
All express trains departing from Taipei and Ilan yesterday afternoon were canceled, Chang said.
An initial TRA investigation showed that Huanglin had applied the brakes and managed to slow the train from 80kph to 40kph when he saw the signal, but the brakes were unable to slow the train sufficiently to prevent the crash.
The investigation also showed that the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system on Huanglin's train had broken during the trial run.
Huanglin had reported the failure to the management at Dali Station, the TRA said.
Huanglin has worked for the TRA for almost 20 years and has a good operating record.
TRA director-general Chen Feng-nan (陳峰男) yesterday handed in his resignation because of the accident.
Chen had previously indicated that he planned to retire next month after serving at the TRA for more than 40 years.
Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (
Chang said that a full investigation into the incident would be conducted.
The TRA dispatched 10 shuttle buses to carry passengers between Shihcheng and Kweishan.
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS