Police and rail officials denied responsibility yesterday after a truck smashed into a train overpass, damaging the track above and leading to a derailment 30 minutes later.
It was the second rail crash in less than three weeks.
Two people were injured in the accident, and rail traffic between Taichung and Changhwa was paralyzed after the crash yesterday. The Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA, 台灣鐵路局) announced that normal rail service would resume at 6am today.
PHOTO: SUN YI-FANG, TAIPEI TIMES
The passenger train was out of service at the time, but the engineer, conductor and the truck driver were injured in the incident.
The container truck, at around
4:50am, crashed into a rail overpass about 200m from the Taichung Train Station, bending the rail tracks on the bridge. The 4.2m-high truck crashed and stuck under the bridge as it tried to pass under it. The height limit of the bridge is 3.7m.
PHOTO: SUN YI-FANG, TAIPEI TIMES
At 5:20am, as a Tzu Chiang express train crossed the bridge, its nine coaches derailed and careened into one of the station platforms.
"To my shock I discovered that the rail track had deformed into an "S" shape about 100 meters before we reached the bent rail. I pulled the emergency break and the train lost control and derailed. We didn't receive any warning," train engineer Su Shih-shui (蘇石水) said yesterday after he was sent to the hospital.
Su recieved three stitches in his right arm.
The train was out of service when the accident occurred, carrying only a crew of three. The train's conductor, Wu Chin-chuan (吳進傳), and the truck driver Hsu Chieh-shi (徐結士), were sent to Cheng Ching Hospital (澄清醫院) in Taichung City. Although the doctor at the hospital said that the injured were not in critical condition, they were being held for further observation.
The police opened a full investigation into the accident yesterday.
The accident damaged two electric polls, one platform and part of a building at the Taichung Train Station.
"When the accident [with the truck] happened, the police didn't realize it's possible impact on the rail track, so we were not informed," said Chang Hsien-chang (
Seeking to deflect blame for the mishap, Chang said, "With all the damage caused by the derailment -- a result of the violation of traffic regulations by a truck driver -- the TRA is actually the victim in this accident," he said.
The head of Taichung's West District police station sought to dispel any charges of police responsibility, saying, "We were sent to record the accident, not knowing that the railway line was damaged."
Both the West District police station and the Taichung City First Police Station, which informed the former of the accident, told the Taipei Times last night that they didn't know who had initially informed police of the accident.
The TRA yesterday arranged shuttle buses to transfer passengers between Taichung and Changhwa.
Meanwhile, two cars of a construction train loaded with logs derailed at 3.30pm yesterday on a level crossing near Kunyang (
Although no injuries were reported, three southbound trains were delayed because of the incident. Normal service on the that line resumed at 5:30pm yesterday.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS