The bodies of two missing people were found yesterday, more than 24 hours after a fire and subsequent explosions at a factory in Pingtung County, raising the death toll to nine, authorities said.
The blaze at Launch Technologies Co’s (明揚國際) golf ball factory at Pingtung Technology Industrial Park (屏東科技產業園區) also killed four firefighters and injured another 109 people.
Search teams are still looking for one missing person.
Photo: CNA
The fire was extinguished at 9:56pm on Saturday, more than 28 hours after it started on Friday evening, the Pingtung County Fire Bureau said.
Bureau Director Hsu Mei-hsueh (許美雪) said it received a call about the fire at 5:31pm on Friday, and firefighters arrived at the location 13 minutes later.
At 6:09pm, after firefighters had entered the premises, an explosion occurred, causing part of the structure to collapse, trapping several firefighters and workers.
A few minutes later, at 6:28pm, a second explosion occurred, Hsu said.
Initially, she had told the media that explosions occurred soon after firefighters were thought to have doused the flames with water, but on Saturday said that water was not used out of fear it could react with combustible gases at the site.
Firefighters instead used dry agents to extinguish the fire, she said.
She yesterday said that she misspoke on Friday due to the chaos at the scene.
She said that when firefighters arrive at a disaster site, they seek to determine the conditions before performing rescue operations.
Firefighters have been trained for situations involving volatile chemicals, and their trucks include a chemical substance checklist to help them look for signs of dangerous chemicals and how to respond to them, she added.
Although the factory provided firefighters with a safety data sheet upon their arrival, it was incomplete, Hsu said, adding that the cause of the incident is still under investigation.
Launch Technologies president Liu An-hao (劉安?) yesterday led executive officials in a bow of apology in an online news conference.
They expressed sorrow over the deaths of firefighters and company staff and offered condolences to the families of victims.
The company would not avoid responsibility, Launch Technologies general manager Lu Ying-cheng (呂英誠) said, adding that it would set up a trust fund to care for victims and their families.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
RSS