Seven were indicted yesterday for their roles in the Pachang Creek (
Premier Tang Fei (唐飛) also accepted yesterday evening the resignations of Chen Hung-yi (陳弘毅), head of the National Fire Administration Administrator, and Ding Yung-chin (丁原進), head of the National Police Administration.
The indicted include the owner and site supervisor of the riverbed construction project, staff members of the Chiayi Fire Department and the National Fire Department and a pilot of the airborne police.
In addition, a file describing the role of a major at the Ministry of National Defense's Rescue and Cooperation Center was handed over to military prosecutors, who are still investigating the incident.
"As the contractor and supervisor, respectively, of the construction project, Chang Yung-hui (張永輝) and Kuo Ching-shen (郭慶申) failed to fulfill their the legal obligation to ensure the safety of the workers," said Tseng Ming-fung (
The indictment states that weather forecasts issued the previous day had warned several times of sudden torrential rain, but Chang and Kuo ignored them and asked their employees to work on the riverbed anyway.
"The workers should have been -- but were not -- given any communication or safety equipment except for a 28m-long rope. The river is about 80 to 90m in width. When they learned that the flooding was imminent it was too late to escape," Tseng said.
Chang and Kuo were indicted on a charge of occupational negligence causing death -- an offense carrying a maximum imprisonment of five years.
Yu Ching-hung (游景宏), head of the Chiayi Fire Department's Chungpu Subsection, and Chen Feng-jen (陳豐仁), a senior member of the subsection, face the same charge for their failure to bring and use rope-throwing equipment.
"It should have occurred to Yu that in such a situation the rescue team must bring the [necessary] equipment to the scene but he didn't ask his team members to do so," Tseng said. "Chen not only failed to bring the equipment but also failed to ask any of his junior colleagues to go back to fetch it once at the scene."
Tseng also said that Chen was resigned to wait for a helicopter to aid in the rescue and do nothing more. "Chen even said that he did not know that they had rope-throwing equipment at their base. Was this the proper attitude for a senior rescuer to take?"
Hsu Ching-hui (許清輝) and Lu Wen-tsun (呂文村) were the officials on duty at the National Fire Administration's command center. They were indicted on a charge of negligence leading to the catastrophe.
The indictment says that Hsu and Lu repeatedly neglected requests from the Chiayi Fire Department to apply for helicopter rescue assistance.
As for the airborne pilot, Yang Tao-hung (
Furthermore, Tseng said, because the four workers were swept away before Yang had even taken off, he forged the record, giving a take-off time of 17 minutes earlier than it actually was. Yang faces charges of negligence and forgery.
Tseng said that the official on duty at the command center of the National Defense's Rescue and Cooperation Center was also liable.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Authorities yesterday elaborated on the rules governing Employment Gold Cards after a US cardholder was barred from entering Taiwan for six years after working without a permit during a 2023 visit. American YouTuber LeLe Farley was barred after already being approved for an Employment Gold Card, he said in a video published on his channel on Saturday. Farley, who has more than 420,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, was approved for his Gold Card last month, but was told at a check-in counter at the Los Angeles International Airport that he could not enter Taiwan. That was because he previously participated in two
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS