The discovery on Thursday of bone fragments and personal effects in a burned-out train two years after the Taroko Express No. 408 derailment prompted Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) to apologize yesterday.
The ministry has erred and will seek to ameliorate matters, Wang said after members of a group of family members of the people killed in the April 2, 2021, crash in Hualien County’s Sioulin Township (秀林) found bone fragments, and personal effects, including watches and cellphones, during an inspection of the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) cars.
Fourty-nine people were killed and more than 200 were injured in the crash.
Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times
The ministry on Thursday invited experts on the derailment of a West Japan Railway Co train in Amagasaki on April 25, 2005 — which killed 107 people — as well as family members of those killed in the Sioulin derailment to look through the cars.
Members of the group said they were shocked the TRA had failed to collect everything from the cars.
The Railway Police Bureau and lawyers of the families yesterday combed through the cars and found four more bone fragments, suspected to be from a skull.
The Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office said that it has delivered the pieces to a forensics lab to determine who they were from.
The TRA has not conducted a sweep since the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board concluded their inspections, Wang said.
He said it was a grave matter and highly disrespectful to the deceased that the TRA had not conducted a full sweep.
Wang Wei-chun (王薇君), spokeswoman of Taroko Tears, a group for family members of those who died, said she hoped the discovery of the bones and personal items would help focus public attention on the need for TRA safety reforms.
Finding the items should be a warning to the Executive Yuan that its disaster prevention and processing procedures still need work, she said.
Now is not the time to be pointing fingers, she said, urging the authorities to quickly identify who the bones belonged to and deliver them to their proper resting place — 881 days after the incident.
Chen Peng-nian (陳鵬年), a Taroko Tears member who was in the crash, said many in the group were shocked and saddened at finding the bone fragments.
Chen said he understands how hard the search-and-rescue effort was, and that it was impossible that every body part would be accounted for.
However, the authorities should be more thorough, he added.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
RSS