Greater Kaohsiung authorities have ordered LCY Chemical Corp, the company suspected of being responsible for the deadly gas explosions that rocked the city last week, to shut down one of its plants until safety improvements are made, a city official said yesterday.
Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生), head of the city’s Economic Development Bureau, said that LCY Chemical’s Dashe (大社) plant in Kaohsiung should be shut down immediately to conduct an overall review of the production facility and the pipeline network connected to it to improve safety.
Tseng cited the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ order to shut down petrochemical plants belonging to the Formosa Plastics Group in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Industrial zone in 2011 in the wake of major fires as a precedent for the move.
Photo: Huang Hsu-lei, Taipei Times
“The public is uneasy [after the July 31 explosions]. The government should do something and not let angry people lay siege to the plant,” Tseng said.
He said that although the pipeline that is thought to have leaked propene and suspected of triggering the explosions was not within the boundaries of LCY Chemical’s Dashe property, it should be considered an extension of the plant and fall under its safety management.
The series of powerful explosions that began just minutes before midnight on July 31 killed 30 people, injured more than 300 and ripped up roads along the pipeline’s route in downtown Kaohsiung.
LCY Chemical responded that it would cooperate with the city government’s order to inspect its production facility and improve the management of the pipelines both inside and outside the plant used to transport its raw materials.
The Dashe plant, which produces propene, also known as polypropylene, is one of four production facilities LCY Chemical has in the Kaohsiung metropolitan area, according to the company’s Web site. It also has a storage terminal in the city’s port area.
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
RSS