Nine soldiers were injured, two seriously, after an explosion at an ammunition depot at the Hsiang Feng military base in Keelung yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense said.
The blast occurred at about 3pm, when a 120mm mortar round exploded during an inspection by technical personnel, the ministry said, adding that the cause of the explosion is under investigation.
Emergency services said that they transported six of the injured soldiers to Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Keelung, and five of them were treated for scrapes, ringing ears and dizziness.
Photo: Wu Sheng-ju, Taipei Times
A staff sergeant surnamed Hung (洪), whose right thigh and left arm were severely disfigured in the blast, arrived at the hospital without vital signs, but was successfully revived, the hospital said.
A 34-year-old sergeant surnamed Yin (尹), who had second and third-degree burns on his arms and face, and whose left arm was extensively damaged, was taken to Tri Service General Hospital’s Keelung branch.
Although Yin was able to respond to doctors’ questions upon arriving at the hospital, he was later intubated and transferred to Tri-Service General Hospital’s branch in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖), hospital deputy superintendent Liu Jui-meng (劉瑞盟) said.
The other two soldiers sought medical attention on their own, the military said.
The ammunition depot where the explosion occurred is operated by the Third Branch of the Sixth Army Command. The base is on the east side of Keelung’s inner harbor, northeast of the city’s downtown area.
The ministry has yet to say whether the accident was related to the annual Han Kuang military exercises, which started yesterday in northern Taiwan and run through Friday.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS