A rat sighting sent more than 100 Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system passengers fleeing in panic yesterday, leaving a trail of shoes, bags and other personal belongings as they rushed for the exit.
The incident occurred on a train bound for MRT Xiangshan Station (象山站) on the Tamsui-Xinyi Line (淡水信義線), also known as the Red Line, at about 9am.
“Many people suddenly started screaming and running. It was like a scene from Train to Busan as people pushed each other and an elderly man fell down,” a witness said in a post on Professional Technology Temple — the nation’s largest online academic bulletin board system.
Photo courtesy of Bao Fei Gong She
Train to Busan was a hit South Korean zombie action thriller that takes place on a train.
Many people thought it was another random attack targeting MRT passengers, the witness said.
Photographs and videos posted online showed the empty train with a few bags, more than a dozen shoes, spilled beverages and other items scattered on the floor of the train and station platform.
MRT operator Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) issued a news release saying that the incident occured at 9:04am near MRT Daan Forest Park Station (大安森林公園站), and that the control center had immediately informed the approximately 700 passengers on the train to disembark at the next station — Daan (大安站) — and wait for the next train as station staff tried to calm the passengers.
Two riders were mildly injured during the stampede, the company said.
Station staff called an ambulance to take the injured passengers to hospital, it said.
People who left their personal belongings during the incident can retrieve them at Daan Station, it said.
TRTC in the afternoon confirmed that surveillance footage of the incident showed a 10cm-long rat entering the train at MRT Daan Forest Park Station and alighting at Daan Station.
As of press time last night, the rat had not been found, the company said.
The company keeps stations and trains clean at all times and has installed rat and cockroach-catching devices in stations, which catch an average of three to five rats every month, it said.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS