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.
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