Legislators from across party lines yesterday lambasted the central government for its inadequate response to Wednesday’s crash of TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 in Taipei, saying that it did not take control of emergency operations from local governments until three days after the accident occurred.
The Disaster Prevention and Rescue Law (災害防救法) stipulates that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications is the designated authority in charge of rescue operations in an aviation accident, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said, adding that Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Chien-yu (陳建宇) failed to immediately set up an emergency command center to facilitate rescue operations.
DPP Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) said that the central government established the National Rescue Command Center following the Pachang Creek Incident (八掌溪事件) in 2008 — in which four workers were swept away by a flash flood after waiting to be rescued in the middle of the creek for more than two hours — to immediately respond to air crashes or marine accidents.
However, Wednesday’s crash demonstrated that central government officials are incapable of any action other than offering condolences to the families of victims, he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Kuo-cheng (林國正) said that the central government should have played a more active role in the emergency operations, adding that the government’s ineffectiveness was particularly curious, seeing as Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) previously served as transportation minister from 2008 to 2013.
However, Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) rejected the allegation that the central government was not doing its best, saying that the army and coast guard had been dispatched to join rescue operations from day one, and that the central government had established an emergency response center at the same time as Taipei and New Taipei City, with the Chen coordinating operations from the center and Vice Premier Simon Chang (張善政) at the crash site.
Mao asked Minister of National Defense Kao Kuang-chi (高廣圻) to commit army troops to the crash site and asked the transportation ministry, the Mainland Affairs Council and the Straits Exchange Foundation to contact the families of passengers immediately after the crash, Sun said.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS