The government has collected about NT$60 million (US$2.1 million) in donations through Line Pay and convenience stores for victims of last week’s fatal train accident and plans to establish an oversight committee to determine how the funds should be used to help them, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said yesterday.
The accident occurred at 9:28am on Friday, when a southbound Taroko Express train traveling from New Taipei City to Taitung hit a crane truck that had slid down a hill from a nearby construction site onto the rails as the train was about to enter the Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) in Hualien’s Sioulin Township (秀林).
As of yesterday, 50 people were reported dead and 200 people were injured.
Photo: CNA
“We have received many inquiries about where people could make a donation, so we have set up specific bank accounts for people to do so,” Chen told a news conference at the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) yesterday, the first day that people could donate money through the four major convenience store chains.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare is in charge of accepting public donations.
Prior to allowing electronic payment services, the ministry on Sunday published several accounts that people can donate to via wire or postal transfer.
.Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
In addition to the Line Pay and convenience store donations, Chen said that more records of donations would be published when banks resume service after the Tomb Sweeping Day long weekend.
The ministry would also set up an oversight committee to strictly regulate the use of the funds, he said.
The committee would be formed by stakeholders and independent third parties, which would ensure that the funds would not be used to pay for government expenditures, he added.
Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of the crane truck, faced more allegations as several photos posted online apparently showed he was with other people when the accident occurred.
Asked if Lee was alone or with other people at the time, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said at the news conference that he was told many of the people who were in the photos were not construction workers.
Except for Lee, the agency has yet to ascertain the identities of the other people in the photos, TRA Chief Secretary Yen Wen-chung (顏文忠) said.
The agency has not confirmed if Lee breached the agency’s order of not working on the construction site from Thursday to yesterday, Yen said.
The contractor of the side slope project was Dong Shin Construction Co (東新營造), the TRA said, adding that Lee, who owns a construction company as well, was recruited by Dong Shin as the supervisor of the construction site and subcontractor of the project.
The Construction Industry Act (營造業法) stipulates that the management of a construction enterprise cannot be a principal, full-time engineer or job site director of another construction enterprise.
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
NORTHERN STRIKE: Taiwanese military personnel have been training ‘in strategic and tactical battle operations’ in Michigan, a former US diplomat said More than 500 Taiwanese troops participated in this year’s Northern Strike military exercise held at Lake Michigan by the US, a Pentagon-run news outlet reported yesterday. The Michigan National Guard-sponsored drill involved 7,500 military personnel from 36 nations and territories around the world, the Stars and Stripes said. This year’s edition of Northern Strike, which concluded on Sunday, simulated a war in the Indo-Pacific region in a departure from its traditional European focus, it said. The change indicated a greater shift in the US armed forces’ attention to a potential conflict in Asia, it added. Citing a briefing by a Michigan National Guard senior
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
ENHANCED SECURITY: A Japanese report said that the MOU is about the sharing of information on foreign nationals entering Japan from Taiwan in the event of an emergency The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday confirmed that Taiwan and Japan had signed an agreement to promote information exchanges and cooperation on border management, although it did not disclose more details on the pact. Ministry spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said the ministry is happy to see that the two nations continue to enhance cooperation on immigration control, in particular because Taiwan and Japan “share a deep friendship and frequent people-to-people exchanges.” “Last year, more than 7.32 million visits were made between the two countries, making it even more crucial for both sides to work closer on immigration and border control,” he said. Hsiao
RSS