As efforts continue to search the rubble of the collapsed Weiguan Jinlong complex in Tainan’s Yongkang District (永康) following Saturday’s magnitude 6.4 earthquake, stories of personal sacrifices by rescue workers from across the nation have started to surface, including some who gave up far more than their Lunar New Year holiday in the race to save lives.
Chiayi City special rescue squad captain Hsu Shao-tang (徐紹唐) directed rescue efforts on Saturday and Sunday, even though his father was hospitalized. He only left the disaster site on Monday to see his father after the hospital contacted him to say his father was in critical condition.
Hsu’s father passed away on Tuesday, and Hsu said that he would rejoin the search and rescue efforts after he puts his father’s affairs in order.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA
A soldier named Ma Ping-han (馬秉涵) was also among those working on the Weiguan Jinlong site, even though his own family’s home in Tainan also collapsed during the quake.
A post yesterday on the “Ministry of National Defense spokesman” Facebook page said Ma rushed home after learning about the loss of his family’s home, but stayed only half a day to get his family resettled before rushing back to camp to volunteer to rejoin the ranks of rescue personnel.
A firefighter from Keelung named Wu Hsin-hsien (吳信憲) also put the call of duty before family time, joining rescue efforts on Tuesday — just five days after he got married.
Some rescuers have continued to work despite being injured, including Cheng Jung-kuei (鄭榮貴), deputy captain of the Chiayi volunteer special rescue brigade.
Cheng was operating an excavator at noon yesterday when the excavator’s arm caught on a steel bar, which sprang back and hurtled toward him, puncturing a thigh. He only went to the hospital after realizing that blood from the wound had spread through his trousers.
Lee Yuan-lung (李元龍), a squad captain from New Taipei City’s special search brigade, said on Facebook that he sprained an ankle after his foot got caught in electrical wiring during a search on Saturday.
Lee said that he taped up the ankle, took some anti-inflammatory medication and muscle relaxants, and returned to the rescue effort.
It was not until he returned home on Tuesday after his crew was rotated out that he unwrapped the ankle and discovered it was severely swollen and bruised.
“On site, we do not think about too much else, we just focus only on how to get the rescue mission done. Only when the job is done do we think about our injuries,” Lee wrote.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS