Much of the Taichung Fire Bureau’s personal protective equipment has exceeded its service life, Taichung city councilors said.
Taichung City Councilors Chen Shu-hua (陳淑華), Hsiao Lung-tse (蕭隆澤) and Chiu Su-chen (邱素貞) of the Democratic Progressive Party were speaking at a council session on Friday, citing information from the National Audit Office’s Taichung division.
According to the office, the expired equipment includes 55.96 percent of all protective clothing, 65.73 percent of masks, 56.82 percent of oxygen tanks, 76.12 percent of thermal imagers and 95.33 percent of personal alert safety systems (PASS), Chen said.
Photo: Su Meng-chuan, Taipei Times
“That basic safety equipment as crucial as PASS units was not replaced shows that the city government has a disregard for the lives of firefighters,” she said.
PASS devices are motion sensors that firefighters activate when entering hazardous environments and emit a warning sound if no movement occurs after a certain amount of time, indicating that a user is in distress.
Taichung firefighters respond to a fire in 62.82 seconds on average, lower than the national average of 41.6 seconds and the slowest among firefighters in the six special municipalities, the city councilors said.
There are 232 vehicles in the city’s fire truck fleet, or just four more than the legally mandated minimum for the jurisdiction, they said, adding that 32.16 percent are more than 15 years old.
The councilors called on the city to replace worn-out equipment and that which has exceeded its service life.
Taichung Fire Bureau Director-General Tseng Chin-tsai (曾進財) said that most of the expired equipment has been kept in working order by being repaired, and that replacing old or broken equipment is a budget priority for the bureau.
The bureau has made significant increases to the budget for replacing aging fire trucks over the past two years and is asking for NT$110 million (US$3.95 million) for that purpose next year, he said.
Taichung firefighters collect intelligence and assess the situation prior to dispatching personnel, unlike other fire departments that carry out assessments after fire trucks arrive at a fire, he said.
This results in a longer response time, but is more effective and safer, he said.
TRAFFIC SAFETY RULES: A positive result in a drug test would result in a two-year license suspension for the driver and vehicle, and a fine of up to NT$180,000 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to authorize police to conduct roadside saliva tests by the end of the year to deter people from driving while under the influence of narcotics, it said yesterday. The ministry last month unveiled a draft of amended regulations governing traffic safety rules and penalties, which included provisions empowering police to conduct mandatory saliva tests on drivers. While currently rules authorize police to use oral fluid testing kits for signs of drug use, they do not establish penalties for noncompliance or operating procedures for officers to follow, the ministry said. The proposed changes to the regulations require
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS