The Railway Bureau yesterday began demolition of the last three homes standing in the way of a railway relocation project in Tainan, giving the families no choice but to leave the sites.
A home in East District (東) owned by Chen Chih-hsiao (陳致曉) was cordoned off at about 5am and the demolition began an hour later, after Chen’s elderly parents, his sisters, and several protesters were forced to vacate the property.
In North District (北), two houses owned by Huang Chun-hsiang (黃春香) were knocked down at about 7am, as several protesters were forced off the properties before the work started.
Photo: Liu Wan-chun, Taipei Times
The demolition of the three properties by the bureau’s central engineering office brought an end to a long standoff between homeowners and the local government over the project that is to relocate part of the Tainan railway line underground.
The project was initiated in 1993 and approved in 2009 by then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Work began in 2012, when Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) was Tainan mayor.
The construction of the new underground rail segment required the demolition of 340 properties, a plan that was opposed by 121 of the homeowners.
Eventually, all except six of them yielded.
The city government began demolition of those six homes in June, forcing the families to vacate.
Huang and Chen were the last two holdouts.
Chen described the forced evacuation as “shameless.”
“First, the city government refused to hold negotiations with us, as we had requested to avoid demolition, then it suddenly decided to start the demolition during the negotiations,” Chen said. “I can only say that I had underestimated the shamelessness of the Democratic Progressive Party.”
Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) said it was time to end the standoff, because the city residents want the project completed as soon as possible to avoid accidents, injuries and train delays.
The property owners would receive the best possible compensation, he said.
The rail relocation project was scheduled to be completed in 2024, but the date was pushed back to 2026 due to delays caused by protests and confrontations with some of the homeowners.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS