People unable to contact friends and relatives streamed into Shanghai’s hospitals yesterday, anxious for information after a stampede during New Year’s celebrations in the city’s historic waterfront area killed 36 people in the worst disaster to hit one of China’s showcase cities in recent years.
The Shanghai government said 47 others received hospital treatment, including 13 who were seriously injured, after the chaos about a half an hour before midnight. Seven of the injured people had left hospitals by yesterday afternoon.
The Shanghai government information office said one Taiwanese was among the dead, and two Taiwanese and one Malaysian were among the injured.
Photo: AFP
The three Taiwanese work for the same accounting firm and were visiting China, Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation said.
One sustained minor injuries, while the other was still hospitalized for further observation, foundation spokesperson Maa Shaw-chang (馬紹章) said.
The foundation contacted China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and the Shanghai City Government’s Taiwan Affairs Office yesterday morning when it learned of the incident, Maa said.
Taiwan hopes the Shanghai government will look into the situation and offer aid as soon as possible if it receives any more reports of Taiwanese being injured, Maa said.
The deaths and injuries occurred at Chen Yi Square in Shanghai’s popular riverfront Bund area, an avenue lined with art deco buildings from the 1920s and 1930s when the city was home to international banks and trading houses. The area is often jammed with people during major events.
At one of the hospitals where the injured were being treated, police brought out photos of unidentified dead victims, causing dozens of waiting relatives to crowd around. Not everyone could see, and young women who looked at the photos broke into tears when they recognized someone.
A saleswoman in her 20s who declined to give her name said she had been celebrating with three friends.
“I heard people screaming, someone fell, people shouted: ‘Don’t rush,”’ she said. “There were so many people and I couldn’t stand properly.”
Xinhua news agency quoted a woman with the surname Yin who was caught with her 12-year-old son in the middle of crowds of people pushing to go up and down steps leading from the square.
“Then people started to fall down, row by row,” Yin said.
Shanghai No. 1 People’s Hospital vice president Xia Shujie told reporters that some of the victims had suffocated.
Relatives desperately seeking information earlier tried to push past hospital guards, who used a bench to hold them back. Police later allowed family members into the hospital.
CCTV America, the US version of state broadcaster China Central Television, posted a video of Shanghai streets after the stampede showing piles of discarded shoes amid the debris.
Yesterday morning, dozens of police officers were in the area and tourists continued to wander by the square, a small patch of grass dominated by a statue of Chen Yi, the city’s first communist mayor.
Steps lead down from the square to a road across from several buildings.
“We were down the stairs and wanted to move up and those who were upstairs wanted to move down, so we were pushed down by the people coming from upstairs,” an injured man told Shanghai TV.
“All those trying to move up fell down on the stairs,” the man said.
Xinhua quoted witness Wu Tao as saying some people had scrambled for coupons that looked like dollar bills bearing the name of a bar that were being thrown out of a third-floor window. It said the cause of the stampede was still under investigation.
Additional reporting by staff writer, with CNA
ANNOUNCEMENT: People who do not comply with the ban after a spoken warning would be reported to the police, the airport company said on Friday Taoyuan International Airport Corp on Friday announced that riding on vehicles, including scooter-suitcases (also known as “scootcases”), bicycles, scooters and skateboards, is prohibited in the airport’s terminals. Those using such vehicles should manually pull them or place them on luggage trolleys, the company said in a Facebook post. The ban intends to maintain order and protect travelers’ safety, as the airport often sees large crowds of people, it said, adding that it has stepped up publicity for the regulation, and those who do not comply after a spoken warning would be reported to the police. The company yesterday said that
QUIET START: Nearly a week after applications opened, agencies did not announce or promote the program, nor did they explain how it differed from other visitor visas Taiwan has launched a six-month “digital nomad visitor visa” program for foreign nationals from its list of visa-exempt countries who meet financial eligibility criteria and provide proof of work contracts. To apply, foreign nationals must either provide proof that they have obtained a digital nomad visa issued by another country or demonstrate earnings based on age brackets, the Bureau of Consular Affairs said. Applicants aged 20 to 29 must show they earned an annual salary of at least US$20,000 or its equivalent in one of the past two years, while those aged 30 or older must provide proof they earned US$40,000 in
UNITY MESSAGE: Rather than focusing on what Trump said on the campaign trail about Taiwan, Taipei should be willing to engage with the US, Pompeo said Taiwan plays a key role in Washington’s model of deterrence against China, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said in a speech in Taipei yesterday. During US president-elect Donald Trump’s first term, “we had developed what we believe was a pretty effective model of deterrence against adversaries who wanted to undermine the set of rules and values that the people of Taiwan and the people of the US hold dear,” Pompeo said at a forum organized by the Formosa Republican Association. “Succeeding in continuing to build this model will not solely rest at the feet of president Trump and his team,
TECH CORRIDOR: Technology centers and science parks in the south would be linked, bolstering the AI, semiconductor, biotech, drone, space and smart agriculture industries The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a “Southern Silicon Valley” project to promote the development of an artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor industry in Chiayi County, Tainan, Pingtung County and Kaohsiung. The plan would build an integrated “S-shaped semiconductor industry corridor” that links technology centers and science parks in the south, Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said yesterday after a Cabinet meeting. The project would bolster the AI, semiconductor, biotech, drone, space and smart agriculture industries, she said. The proposed tech corridor would be supported by government efforts to furnish computing power, workforce, supply chains and policy measures that encourage application and integration
RSS