Oliver Chen (陳瑞光), a leading member of the Sunflower movement, died on Monday after his scooter slipped off the road and he fell over a railing into a river valley on his way from New Taipei City’s Pinglin District (坪林) to Yilan County, police said.
A truck driver surnamed Hsueh (薛) reported the incident on Monday, police said.
Hsueh, who was driving back to Taipei from Yilan County, said he spotted a scooter without a rider near the 46.3km mark on the Taipei-Yilan Highway. He stopped and looked around for the driver before calling the police.
Rescuers from the fire department found Chen’s body in the river valley near the road, police said.
Chen showed no vital signs when his body was retrieved from the valley, which was about 9m deep, police said, adding that he had multiple fractures and bruises on both arms and legs.
The 46.3km mark on the highway is at a right-turn bend, the officers said, adding that the concrete railway showed no visible signs of impact.
They have talked to Chen’s mother, but she said she did not know why her son went to Yilan.
A third-year graduate student of law at National Taiwan University, Chen spoke English, Japanese, German and French, and played an important role in the Sunflower movement’s real-time updates to the world.
The activists provided round-the-clock broadcasts in English, Japanese, German, French, Dutch, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic during their occupation of the legislature in March to protest the government’s handling of a proposed service trade agreement with China.
Chen was part of the 80-person team tasked with communicating with foreign media and oversaw the translation of a civilian version of the cross-strait oversight act.
Chen’s body was sent to Taipei City Wanfang Hospital.
Student leaders Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), Academia Sinica researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) and other members of the Sunflower movement visited on Tuesday to express their condolences.
The news of his passing came as a shock to university staff and students, with the university’s secretary-general, Lin Ta-te (林達德), expressing his condolences.
The university would do everything in its power to help Oliver Chen’s family, Lin Ta-te said.
One of the university’s law professors, Lee Mau-sheng (李茂生), said in a Facebook post that it was sad to lose a talented individual like Oliver Chen in an accident.
Additional reporting by Su Fang-ho and Wu Po-hsuan
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS