A fire that tore through a nursing home in New Taipei City yesterday killed six people and injured 28.
TV footage showed elderly people being evacuated from the facility, some in clothes blackened by smoke.
Three bodies were found in the Le Huo Nursing Center (樂活老人長照) in a 10-story building in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店), while rescuers rushed 31 to hospital.
Photo: CNA
“Three bodies were found in a room where the deadly fire likely started,” a New Taipei City Fire Department official said.
“As they were all charred, they could not be immediately identified,” she said.
A further three people — aged 79, 87 and 95 years old — were later pronounced dead, while 17 were found to be suffering from serious injuries, the fire department said.
Photo: Chiang Shiang, Taipei Times
All of the identified dead were women, it said.
The fire broke out about 7am and was extinguished in about 30 minutes, but the evacuation process was made more difficult because most of the elderly residents were bedridden or wheelchair-bound, the department added.
Authorities were investigating the cause of the blaze.
They were also looking into claims that insufficient staffing at the home had further complicated the rescue effort.
“The facility passed inspections, but we are investigating if its response [to the fire] and the staffing on the day met regulations,” New Taipei City Deputy Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) told reporters.
The facility has seven staff members, authorities said.
Local media reported that there were only two or three workers looking after about 40 residents at the time of the fire.
It was not immediately clear how many residents were present when the blaze broke out and how many managed to escape.
The owner of the nursing home, Ching Pao-ling (井寶琳), was taken by police for questioning.
NATIONAL SECURITY: The Chinese influencer shared multiple videos on social media in which she claimed Taiwan is a part of China and supported its annexation Freedom of speech does not allow comments by Chinese residents in Taiwan that compromise national security or social stability, the nation’s top officials said yesterday, after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residency permit of a Chinese influencer who published videos advocating China annexing Taiwan by force. Taiwan welcomes all foreigners to settle here and make families so long as they “love the land and people of Taiwan,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The public power of the government must be asserted when necessary and the Ministry of
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
RSS