The Yilan District Prosecutors’ Office on Monday charged six people with negligence over the October 2019 collapse of the Nanfangao Bridge (南方澳橋) that killed six people and injured 12.
Four of the defendants are from companies contracted to oversee the bridge’s construction and supervision, while two are former officials in charge of construction at the Suao Port Branch of Taiwan International Ports Corp.
They have been charged with involuntary manslaughter and negligent injury, the prosecutors’ office said.
Photo: Chiang Chih-hsiung, Taipei Times
It said the collapse was the result of collective negligence by the defendants.
The contractor did not build the 140m suspension bridge according to the approved blueprint, the supervisory company failed to perform its job properly and the port management authority failed to conduct controls, maintenance and repairs as required, it said.
The contractor covered cables with loose-fitting high-density polyethylene tubes that did not attach to bridge anchor heads in an airtight manner, it said, adding that the anchor heads were not shielded against water.
As the waterproofing material on the anchor heads wore off, saltwater corroded the cables and joints inside, it said.
The office also charged the owner and a shareholder of the supervisory company with forging documents and fraud, after they were found to have hired unlicensed personnel to inspect bridges in Yilan County.
The company in 2018 illicitly gained NT$8.23 million (US$270,412 at the current exchange rate) in public funds by providing false information about inspectors to the Yilan County Government, prosecutors said.
The finding was made during the probe into the collapse and is not related to the incident, they said.
The corrosion issue was mentioned in a report by the independent Taiwan Transportation Safety Board in 2020.
Bureau official Yeh Ming-shan (葉名山) at the time said the bridge was prone to rust damage, due to saltwater and high humidity in the area.
Rain water also seeped into the anchoring mechanism and corroded the steel strands, he said.
The bridge underwent seven inspections since its completion in 1998, but they were all superficial visual inspections that failed to take into account that the bridge had specific design features that required closer examination, Yeh said.
No inspection had been carried out in the four years prior to the collapse, he added.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS