The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) is to inspect all construction sites near railways following a train crash in Hualien County that killed at least 51 people, the agency said yesterday.
TRA Deputy Director-General Du Wei (杜微) made the announcement in the wake of the incident, which occurred when a Taroko Express train crashed inside Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) after hitting a crane truck near the tunnel’s entrance.
The vehicle had slid down a hill to the tracks from a nearby TRA construction site.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The agency is investigating rail-side operations since the accident, Du told a news conference in Taipei.
The TRA had previously requested that construction at all sites near railways be halted over the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday, he added.
The TRA is inspecting all sites where the railway could possibly be obstructed, and these projects would be halted until they meet the agency’s standards, he said.
It is also investigating the reason the construction project near the site of the train crash had been delayed to the end of next month when it was to be completed by Jan. 20, he added.
The crash highlights transportation risks, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said.
Safety nets and fences should be erected at all construction projects near areas with weak infrastructure or a slope, Wang said, adding that he would discuss the issue with TRA officials.
All parties accountable for the incident would be held responsible and the construction company, as well as any affiliated contractors, would be asked to remunerate the victims or their families per their contractual obligations, Du said.
The agency would look into revising its policy on allowing ticket sales for standing passengers, Wang said, adding that it does not yet have enough information to make such a decision.
The TRA allows 15 standing passengers per carriage on Taroko Express trains, which it permitted after trials as it is popular among travelers, it said.
The TRA will compare the list of victims with its records of non-seated tickets sold to try to establish whether standing passengers were at greater risk for injury, Du said.
Meanwhile, an image of an internal chat group among TRA employees was yesterday leaked to media. Messages in the chat indicated that some staff had suggested that the agency blame the construction company for the incident.
The TRA confirmed that some people had suggested such tactics, but the agency had not adopted the measures.
The TRA will shoulder any responsibility that it should rightly shoulder, Du said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,