Four people were killed and another was injured by falling rocks yesterday while hiking near Butterfly Valley Waterfall (蝴蝶谷瀑布) in Taichung, authorities said.
The rockfall occurred near the 1.4km mark of the Butterfly Valley hiking trail in the Guguan (谷關) area of Taichung’s Heping District (和平), the Taichung Fire Bureau said.
The bureau said it was alerted at 3:13pm and dispatched personnel to the scene, where they arrived to find two men and two women without vital signs. A 70-year-old woman sustained bruises.
Photo courtesy of the Taichung Fire Bureau
The casualties were part of a 16-person hiking group that had traveled from Taipei at 7:25am. and started hiking at 11am, the bureau said.
Other members of the group, including former minister of transportation and communications Tsai Duei (蔡堆), descended the trail on their own.
Police and search-and-rescue crews were still at the scene at 8pm.
Emergency personnel used ropes to pull the four people back up to the trail and carried them down the mountain, the bureau said.
Elsewhere, four people were rescued yesterday after a yacht foundered and sank off Dongji Islet (東吉嶼) in Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said.
The Penghu-registered yacht Daily Ocean capsized about 2 nautical miles (3.7km) off Dongji Islet at about 9:25am after rough seas caused it to take on water, the CGA’s 13th Patrol District Headquarters said.
The vessel lost power before capsizing, sending all four people on board, including the captain surnamed Lee (李), into the water, it said.
They were rescued by a fishing boat, the San Chuan Fa, before coast guard patrol boats arrived at the scene.
According to the Coast Guard’s Seventh Patrol Corps, the yacht departed Magong at 6:28am for a diving trip near Dongji Islet, with the four people on board.
The coast guard said it had dispatched a patrol vessel after receiving the report, but the occupants had already been rescued by the nearby fishing boat.
A tugboat has been arranged to recover the capsized yacht, while coast guardsmen remained at the scene to maintain a safety perimeter.
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