Flooding that severely disrupted the operation of the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Thursday last week was caused by a blockage in one of the airport’s draining pipelines that prevented the rapid discharge of floodwater into the Pusin River (埔心溪), an investigation by the Public Construction Commission (PCC) showed.
“Soft gravel accumulated in a box culvert at one end of Pipeline H, making it difficult to discharge floodwater into the river and subsequently leading to flooding in the airport,” PCC Minister Wu Hong-mo (吳宏謀) said, adding that Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) failed to respond to the disaster in a timely manner.
The findings were made public at a news conference at the Executive Yuan in Taipei yesterday, which was broadcast live online.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Wu said the three-day investigation showed that accumulated rainfall during a thunderstorm on Thursday morning reached 15.1cm, adding that the airport’s draining system is designed to be able to handle that amount.
The commission also found that the flooding was not caused by reversed water flow from the Pusin River, contradicting a statement made by TIAC. The commission’s investigation concluded that the failure to promptly close a floodgate at an underpass leading to the basement of Terminal Two explained why the terminal’s basement was inundated with floodwater.
The commission suggested that TIAC inspect all drainage pipelines within a week. The contractors working on the projects at the airport should make sure that the passages are able to quickly discharge floodwater, the commission said, adding that TIAC and the Taoyuan City Government should share information on the Pusin River and jointly prevent flooding.
TIAC said financial losses caused by the flooding at the airport came to more than NT$50 million (US$1.54 million), including damage to airport facilities and compensation for passengers for the delayed delivery of their luggage.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said in a statement that it would ask TIAC to address the issues mentioned in the PCC report, adding that it would not allow a similar incident to recur.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) yesterday said that he had approved the resignations of TIAC chairman Samuel Lin (林鵬良) and terminated the employment of TIAC president David Fei (費鴻鈞).
Hochen faced criticism from lawmakers on the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday morning, when he was requested to brief lawmakers on how the ministry resumed operations at the airport after the flooding and whether it has any plans to cope with similar crises in the future.
Lawmakers also criticized the ministry over the derailment of a Chukuang-class train on the Hualien-Taitung railway line on Saturday that affected thousands of passengers.
The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said it suspected that heat caused the railway tracks to deform, which consequently caused the train to derail.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-tse (李昆澤) said that he found it hard to believe that thundershowers would turn the airport into a “hydroport” and that railway tracks would deform because of heat.
Both events exposed the vulnerability of the nation’s transport systems, particularly in coping with the threat from natural disasters, Lee said.
DPP Legislator Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清) said that the national gateway has become a national shame because of the flooding, adding that the airport company did not tell the whole truth to ministry.
“The airport has attributed the flooding to the water overflow from the Pusin River, which is not true. It was the draining Pipeline H that was clogged and could not discharge water,” Cheng said.
Cheng also said that the accumulated rainfall in Taoyuan’s Pusin District (埔心) hit 8.5cm per hour in 2011, but it did not cause any flooding.
In addition to the TIAC’s lack of drills to combat flooding, Cheng said that some of the company’s employees were allowed to finish work at 5pm on Thursday, even though the management was still busy handling the aftermath of the flooding.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so