A man suspected of starting a blaze that killed two people in a residential building in Yunlin County’s Dounan Township (斗南) was arrested early yesterday, hours after the fire broke out.
The 33-year-old suspect, surnamed Tu (杜), is being investigated for murder as firefighters and police seek to determine the exact cause of the fire, police sources said.
Tu was arrested at about 8:40am in Dounan, after the blaze killed a 21-year-old woman surnamed Wu (吳) and a young boy aged 4.
Photo: CNA
Surveillance footage showed Tu leaving the building soon after the fire started at 3am, Yunlin County Police Commissioner Lin Guh-tyng (林故廷) said.
Firefighters later found four tanks of propane at the site, but police were still looking into whether they were used to start the fire, Lin said.
Wu and the child had been living with Tu, his 56-year-old father and a 45-year-old woman surnamed Liu (劉), who escaped the fire, authorities said.
Wu, the child and Tu’s father were rushed to a hospital after experiencing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, they said, adding that Tu’s father was resuscitated.
Lin Wen-shan (林文山), head of the Yunlin County Fire Department, said that Tu’s father and Liu were the parents of the four-year-old child, while Wu was Liu’s daughter from a previous marriage.
The suspect is also from a previous marriage of his father.
Yunlin County Commissioner Chang Li-shan (張麗善), who visited the scene of the fire, said that neighbors had complained of a loud argument that lasted about an hour between Liu and the 33-year-old Tu the night before.
It was not clear if that argument had anything to do with the fire, Chang added.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS