CRIME
Blast death toll up to five
A gas explosion at a Taichung mall last month is being investigated as a case of negligent homicide, prosecutors said yesterday, while authorities in Macau announced that a toddler injured in the blast had died, bringing the death toll to five. The Macau Government Information Bureau in a statement said that a two-year-old girl who suffered severe brain injuries in the Feb. 13 blast had died on Friday last week at Conde S. Januario Hospital. The girl underwent emergency surgery in Taiwan and was transported to Macau on a medical charter flight on Feb. 26. The toddler and her six family members were in Taiwan on vacation, and were walking by the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store when a gas explosion ripped through a food court undergoing renovations on the 12th floor. The explosion sent debris flying down to ground level, striking the child, and killing her grandmother and grandfather. Two other people also died in the explosion. The Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said it had already interviewed 33 witnesses, but had not named any suspects, adding that it is waiting for professional investigation units to complete their probe.
TOURISM
AIT helps lost American
A man from the US walked from Taoyuan to Taichung for six days without any money before finally asking for assistance from local police, who helped him contact the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), police said. The man was traveling from Hong Kong back to the US on Feb. 27, but missed his connecting flight at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport as he was late arriving at the airport, police said. Having almost no money, he could not afford to change his flight and was stuck in Taiwan. Lacking money and a mode of transportation, the man decided to walk to Taipei, but lost his way and ended up walking in the opposite direction all the way to Taichung’s Dajia District (大甲), police said. During his six-day trek, the man survived on food from strangers and charity groups during the day and slept on the street at night, police said. When he arrived in Taichung on Tuesday last week, he was too tired to go on and asked for help from a local police station. After learning of his plight, police contacted the AIT and asked for help. The police said the AIT agreed to buy a ticket for the man to travel to Taipei and handle subsequent matters after they confirmed his identity, but police officers provided a part of the fare to make the trip easier.
ENVIRONMENT
Butterflies cause closure
Taiwan on Wednesday enacted its earliest freeway butterfly protection measures in nearly a decade, closing a section of the outer lane of Freeway No. 3 due to the large migration of purple crow butterflies, local conservationists said. The lane was closed from 8:50am to 1:30pm on the northbound stretch between the 253km and 251km markers in Linnei Township (林內), Yunlin County, marking the earliest closure before the usual peak at the Tomb Sweeping Festival, the Taiwan Purple Crow Ecological Preservation Association said. More than 30,000 butterflies passed through the area in the morning, with as many as 690 butterflies per minute at one point, the association said. The Freeway Bureau also set up a 1,100m protective net and closed the outer lane once butterfly traffic exceeded 250 per minute, adding that the closure remained in effect until the butterfly density decreased. This year’s early migration is attributed to a colder-than-usual winter followed by warmer weather, the association said.
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
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