A huge landslide buried more than 300m of Freeway No. 3 near Maling Keng (瑪陵坑) in Keelung yesterday afternoon, about 3km from the northern end of the 429km long Formosa Freeway.
As of press time, rescue teams were still digging and it was unclear whether there were cars buried under the rock and mud.
All six northbound and southbound lanes of the highway were buried under an enormous pile of rock and soil stretching 600m to 700m in length. The Dapu overpass crumbled under the weight of the landslide and lay among the debris in the middle of the freeway.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The road is completely 虹naccessible to motorists and was blocked off by authorities.
The National Freeway Bureau yesterday set up an emergency task force to deal with the landslide. Authorities from the military and fire department arrived at the scene later and began digging with dozens of excavators and other heavy machinery. They also used metal detectors to aid their search for any cars that may have been buried.
One mother who hurried to the scene said she suspected her child, who commutes to work along the freeway, was buried under the landslide because she had been told that her child hadn’t arrived at work.
Television actress Chen Mei-fong (陳美鳳), who was driving on that section of the highway at the time of the incident and witnessed the hill collapse onto the road, said there were two or three cars ahead of her when the landslide occurred.
“It happened too fast for me to see whether any cars were buried. I was in a panic, and slammed on my brakes in a hurry,” Chen said on the television news.
The actress said she was not driving fast at the time and was terrified by the “sheer force of nature.”
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) told reporters that he dispatched Vice Premier Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) to the scene after receiving reports from the National Freeway Bureau at about 2:35pm.
The bureau said it could take up to two weeks to clear the debris. Motorists traveling to the Keelung area are advised to take alternative routes such as the Sun Yat-sen Freeway, bureau officials said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
SWITCH TO BEIJING: The government severed diplomatic relations about an hour after Honduras announced the move, saying that no semi-official ties would be maintained Taiwan severed diplomatic ties with Honduras and ended all cooperation with the Central American country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, about an hour and a half after the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Twitter at 8am Taiwan time that the nation would cut its ties with Taiwan. Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Wednesday sent Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina to Beijing to negotiate the establishment of diplomatic relations. She announced the plan on March 14 on Twitter. “To safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity, Taiwan is terminating diplomatic ties with Honduras with immediate effect” after communication with
TRADE MISSION: After Fijian elections in December last year, pro-democratic parties formed a coalition and overruled a name change imposed by the former government The Taipei Trade Office in Fiji has been restored to its former name, the Trade Mission of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the Republic of Fiji, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Fiji on Friday last week issued a note verbale to the office saying that the name change was retroactively effective from March 15, Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Director-General Wallace Chow (周民淦) told a news conference in Taipei. The mission’s diplomatic privileges have been reinstated as stipulated in Fiji’s Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act, which was enacted in 1971, Chow said. Taiwan set up a trade
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday departed for a 12-day trip to China as scheduled, despite calls for him to cancel the trip after Honduras severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan as an apparent result of China’s dollar diplomacy. “This is my first trip to China. I was 37 when I began handling cross-strait affairs in the government. Now I am 73 and have waited 36 years for the visit. It is indeed a bit too long, but I am glad I can go,” Ma of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) told reporters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. “Aside from paying respects to
‘INDISPENSABLE ROLE’: Despite stopovers in the US, Tsai said the aim of her trip is to ‘demonstrate determination to deepen exchanges’ with the allies of the nation President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday afternoon left Taiwan on a 10-day trip to Central America that includes stopovers in New York and Los Angeles. “Through this visit, I will express my gratitude to diplomatic partners for their support of Taiwan,” Tsai said at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport shortly before boarding the plane. The trip to Guatemala and Belize — her first overseas journey since the COVID-19 pandemic began sweeping around the world in early 2020 — aims to “demonstrate Taiwan’s determination to deepen exchanges” with its Central American allies, she said. Tsai said that she and her delegation would also explore the possibility
RSS