Seven Taiwanese tourists who were injured in a traffic accident in northern China on Sunday came home yesterday on a direct medical charter flight.
The flight on a Trans Asia Airways Airbus 320 was arranged by the International SOS. Other members of the 16-person guided tour also returned on the flight.
Among the passengers were two sons of the only Taiwanese tourist killed in the accident. The two young men brought home the ashes of their mother, Fu Hsueh-chin (
The guided tour was organized by Taipei-based Hifly Tourist Service.
The accident occurred when the group was on its way from Jinan to Taian, a major tourist attraction in a mountainous area.
After the tragedy, the National Travel Agent Association and the quasi-official Straits Exchanges Foundation scrambled to offer assistance, arranging for emergency treatment and a direct cross-strait medical charter flight.
Travel industry sources said the flight cost around NT$3 million to NT$3.5 million (US$91,000 to US$106,000) to arrange, mostly covered by insurance.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
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Taiwan is bracing for a political shake-up as a majority of directly elected lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) face the prospect of early removal from office in an unprecedented wave of recall votes slated for July 26 and Aug. 23. The outcome of the public votes targeting 26 KMT lawmakers in the next two months — and potentially five more at later dates — could upend the power structure in the legislature, where the KMT and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) currently hold a combined majority. After denying direct involvement in the recall campaigns for months, the
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