The fifth and sixth floors of a six-story residential building on Jhongsing Street in Taichung’s Cingshuei District (清水) partially collapsed yesterday, with no injuries or deaths.
Taichung Police Department’s Cingshuei Precinct yesterday said that all 34 residents of 13 households were evacuated from the building and 26 of them were placed in hotels.
Cingshuei District’s Sining Borough (西寧) Warden Wang Ching-yuan (王慶源) said the 48-year-old building was co-constructed by the landowner and a construction company, but the construction was not completed due to the company’s financial troubles and eventual closure.
Photo: CNA
The fifth and sixth floors have been left bare since then, while the rest of the building was rented out at low cost, mostly to disadvantaged, low-income households, with most residents living on the second and third floors, he said.
A resident surnamed Shih (石) yesterday said most tenants have lived there for 30 to 40 years and her landlord charges as little as NT$4,000 in rent due to the building’s poor condition.
Taichung Urban Development Bureau Director Lee Cheng-wei (李正偉) said the building’s owner would face penalties under the Building Act (建築法) for failing to report the structure’s condition, neglecting to have it designated as a dangerous building and not taking necessary protective measures.
Taichung Architects Association chairman Yu Cheng-tsung (虞承宗) said initial evaluation showed that a lack of maintenance likely caused the concrete to carbonize and the steel rebar to rust, which led to the collapse.
Further assessments of structural safety are required and redevelopment is strongly recommended given the building’s age, he 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
RSS