Council of Agriculture Chairman Lee Chin-lung (李金龍) has tendered his resignation twice over the past two days, but will stay on to take responsibility for the Alishan train crash, Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday.
"The premier didn't approve Lee's resignation because the accident didn't result from faulty decision-making by Lee but from careless execution," Lin quoted Premier Yu Shyi-kun as saying yesterday.
Yu made the remark during a closed-door meeting where he listened to the briefing on the accident presented by the agriculture council, interior ministry, health department and defense ministry.
According to Lin, Lee tendered his resignation, both verbally and in writing, twice since the accident took place on Saturday.
Instead of quitting, Lin said, Lee should focus on how to prevent similar accidents from happening again.
Bowing to the public to express his personal apology, Lee yesterday also took the opportunity to dismiss media reports that the accident took place because the four-carriage train was overloaded.
"Records show that 1,073 tickets were sold that day. In other words, there was an average of 179 passengers in each of the six trains that went up the mountain that day. However, each train can carry 200 people," he said.
Lee yesterday also revealed the names of council officials who have been held responsible for the accident.
Huang Yu-hsing (黃裕星), director of the agriculture council's forestry bureau, was transferred to a non-administrative position. He offered his resignation on the day of the accident.
Huang's position will be temporarily filled by Lee Tao-sheng (李桃生), the bureau's deputy director.
In addition, Hung Ming-chuan (洪明川), director of the forestry management office in Chiayi County, will be transferred to a technician's position. Deputy director Yung Chao-shun (楊昭勳) will temporarily take over Hung's position.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS