Railway Police Bureau officers on Monday discovered what is believed to be a human bone, a tooth and 56 “non-train-car items” in a renewed inspection of cars in the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) train that crashed in Hualien County in 2021, killing 49 people and injuring more than 200.
The bone fragment and tooth have been sent to the Institute for Forensic Medicine for DNA examination, the Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement issued late on Monday.
The findings were made earlier in the day when Railway Police Bureau officers carried out a second inspection of the first to sixth cars of Taroko Express No. 408 at the TRA deport in Keelung’s Qidu District (七堵).
Photo: CNA
On Friday, a search was conducted by Taoyuan City prosecutors at the TRA Fugang Rail depot in Taoyuan’s Yangmei District (楊梅), of the most seriously damaged seventh and eighth cars where most of the fatalities occurred, the statement said.
Taroko Express No. 408 derailed on April 2, 2021, after colliding with a maintenance vehicle that had fallen down a nearby slope onto the railway line, as the train was about to enter a tunnel in Sioulin Township (秀林).
The renewed inspections of all eight cars was prompted by the discovery of what is believed to be part of a human skull on Thursday last week by Angela Wang (王薇君), spokeswoman of the Taroko Tears group, which represents the families of those who died, while paying her respects to those who perished in the crash at a ceremony hosted by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications at the Fugang depot.
During searches conducted on Thursday and Friday, 18 pieces of bones (including the one discovered by Wang), two teeth and 94 “non-train-car related items” were found in cars seven and eight.
Chen Meng-hsiu (陳孟秀), a lawyer for Taroko Tears, said on Monday in a social media post that she was shocked to hear the news, adding that the TRA is not solely to blame for the poor handling of the crash’s aftermath.
Chen said that the Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office and the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board (TTSB) should be held accountable for their failure to conduct a proper search of the train cars.
She asked why Hualien prosecutors failed to thoroughly collect every piece of “evidence” before handing the train over to the TRA.
Moreover, even if Hualien prosecutors believed the TRA was responsible for the later cleanup of the cars, TRA personnel should have done so under the professional supervision of prosecutors and forensic experts, she added.
Chen also accused the TTSB of lax investigation in the aftermath of the deadly accident, arguing that the agency was responsible for analyzing and identifying all personal items left in the cars by passengers.
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