Taiwan Railway Corp has been asked to evaluate locations along railway routes where a rockfall monitoring system might need to be installed after the nation last week experienced the largest earthquake in the past 25 years, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said yesterday.
Wang made the remarks while inspecting the transport facilities in Yilan County along with lawmakers serving on the legislature’s Transportation Committee.
On Wednesday night, a northbound Puyuma Express train hit a fallen rock as it was nearing Hualien County’s Heping Station, causing the first car of the train to derail.
Photo: Tsai Yun-jung, Taipei Times
The incident occurred in a railway section that was not categorized as having a high risk of rockfalls, where a rockfall alarm system should be installed.
Wang told reporters that the rock bounced onto the tracks after falling from a side slope of Highway 9.
“The alarm system has so far been installed in 26 sections, and Taiwan Railway previously evaluated that the rockfall alarm system should be installed in 38 more railway sections. However, the incident occurred in an area with a relatively stable side slope,” Wang said.
“After we experienced a magnitude 7.2 earthquake centered in Hualien last week and more than 800 aftershocks afterward, I am asking Taiwan Railway to conduct a comprehensive examination along the railway routes again, particularly sections between Hualien and Taitung. They should study whether the alarm system should be installed in more locations, and the ministry should fund the increase in alarm system installations,” he said.
Meanwhile, Wang also vowed to proceed with the Suhua Highway Safety Enhancement Project after the earthquake caused severe damage to the highway, saying that it is the ministry’s most urgent task at the moment.
The highway, a 118km section of Highway No. 9, is considered one of the most dangerous yet most scenic drives in Taiwan, with a portion of it built alongside very steep cliffs.
The project is to address the safety issues in highway sections that were not included in the Suhua Highway Improvement Project, which was completed in 2020.
The sections are between Dongao (東澳) and Nanao (南澳) in Yilan County, as well as between Heping (和平) and Hejung (和中) and between Heren (和仁) and Chungde (崇德) areas in Hualien County.
“No damage was reported in tunnels built in the Suhua Highway Improvement Project after the earthquake. All road damage caused by the quake was reported in sections that were included in the project,” Wang said.
“For the highway’s long-term safety, we need the Suhua Highway Safety Enhancement Project, in which a 10.2km-long tunnel would be built. This would be the most important construction to the counties on the east coast and would be the ministry’s top priority, a task I would hand over to the new transportation minister,” he said.
The Suhua Highway Safety Enhancement Project is scheduled to be completed in 2032, Wang said.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS