Government officials should honestly face major safety issues that were exposed by the fire in Kaohsiung’s Cheng Chung Cheng (城中城) building, the New Power Party (NPP) said yesterday.
NPP Kaohsiung City Councilor Lin Yu-kai (林于凱) said that neglect to thoroughly carry out public safety inspections in the building was one of the main reasons that the fire caused so many casualties.
Forty-six people were killed and 41 were injured in the blaze on Thursday last week.
Photo: CNA
Article 77 of the Building Act (建築法) stipulates that construction department officials may dispatch personnel at any time to buildings to check structural and equipment issues related to public safety and health, Lin said.
“Officials would have found that the building’s fireproof doors were missing if they had been thorough about public safety inspections, which fire safety inspections cannot match,” he said.
In 1999, the Ministry of Interior issued a statement that public safety inspections should be conducted every two years at buildings with 16 floors or more, while buildings with eight to 15 floors should be inspected every three years, he said.
Photo: CNA
However, the ministry only made inspections mandatory for buildings with 16 floors or more, he said.
The Taipei City Government is the only regional authority that has enforced public safety inspections for buildings with fewer than 16 floors, he said.
NPP chairwomen Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said that a fire at the Chiaoyou Building in Changhua City in June that killed four people and injured 20 showed safety issues would continue even if the Condominium Administration Act (公寓大廈管理條例) were amended to require that every building have a management committee.
Residents of old buildings are exposed to safety risks either because administrative authorities fail to conduct detailed inspections or because building management committees are reluctant to intervene for fear of touching on thorny property ownership issues, Chen said.
Investigations into the fires in Kaohsiung and Changhua showed that escape routes were blocked, while escape ladders were damaged or removed, she said, adding that openings for ladders ducted smoke from floor to floor.
A building’s management committee cannot do much if residents do not pay fees, NPP caucus whip Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said.
Paying such fees would have added to the financial burden for the people living in the Cheng Chung Cheng building, who were economically disadvantaged to begin with, Chiu said.
“Our information shows that rent for a room in the Cheng Chung Cheng building was about NT$3,000 per month, far below market price, indicating that the quality of life there was low,” he said, adding that “residents in public housing pay rent of NT$6,000 to NT$13,000 per month.”
Since the Housing Act (住宅法) was amended in 2017, the Ministry of the Interior has not stipulated basic standards for public housing, Chiu said.
Moreover, such standards should be reviewed every four years, forming the basis for housing policy planning and subsidies, he said.
Article 40 of the Housing Act requires local authorities to investigate situations where basic housing standards are not met, Chiu said.
They are allowed to establish guidance and improvement plans to ensure basic standards are met, he said.
However, they only examine living and bathroom areas, not fire control systems, power facilities or the building’s structure, he added.
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