The last time Su Chien-yi’s (蘇建益) pregnant wife saw her newlywed husband was on the morning of Aug. 9 last year. Despite a typhoon warning, heavy rains and washed out roads, he had been called in to the office for overtime work.
He never made it home. Su was one of 10 victims on Shuangyuan Bridge (雙園大橋) when it collapsed into the Gaoping River (高屏溪) that afternoon after raging waters washed away its support columns.
There was no warning about the bridge’s imminent collapse, nor was any attempt made to seal off the bridge that connected Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, despite the record rainfall upstream brought by Typhoon Morakot.
One year later, Su Lee Yu-mei (蘇李玉美) is demanding answers from the government on whether her son’s family is entitled to national compensation. Despite months of consultations, the government has yet to make a decision.
Under the State Compensation Act (國家賠償法), the government is liable for any damage caused by a defect in public facilities, including roads and bridges, or public officials’ negligence.
Chou Chun-mi (周春米), a lawyer representing the victims’ families, said both these factors were evident when the 2.9km bridge collapsed.
“It’s a fact that the bridge washed away and because the victims were found to have died as a result, the government should be liable for compensation,” she said.
However, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) has given conflicting signals on the issue over the past six months. First, it rejected the claim in February, saying the act did not apply in the case of a natural disaster. In May, it asked the families to reopen the case.
A senior Directorate-General of Highways official said there was a policy change after the government decided to compensate the families of four people killed when a landslide buried a section of National Freeway No. 3 in Taipei County in April.
“What we realized was that the motorists are innocent when incidents like this occur,” said Mile Chen (陳茂南), chief secretary at the directorate. “We decided to take another look at their claims as a result.”
Nevertheless, claimants like Su Lee say they are getting tired of waiting while the government decides what should have been apparent from the start: That people drowned because the government was unprepared.
“If President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) or Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo’s (毛治國) children had died that day, would the government still be adopting this attitude?” she asked at a press conference held by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) yesterday.
Pan said it was incomprehensible that it took the ministry less than a month to decide to compensate the landslide victims’ families, but the Shuangyuan families have been waiting for almost a year.
Representatives of the 22 other people who lost family members in the incident said they were angry with the lack of communication on the progress of the case since May.
“Don’t they feel disgraced or ashamed that we have to hold two press conferences [to ask for information]?” said Lin Liang-lin (林良璘), who lost his brother. “It’s been three months [without] a word.”
The directorate promised to give a decision by Aug. 20, but in the meantime, it said it would hold talks with Chou.
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