On Thursday evening, many people living near Lane 94, Dazhi Street in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山) heard a loud thud from a nearby construction site. Then tiles in their homes began to fall, large cracks appeared on walls and iron bars on windows bent. while a few buildings seemed to be tilting. Police and firefighters quickly arrived and found that several adjoining buildings were leaning and had large cracks in their walls, while the road surface had crumbled and partly collapsed. They evacuated more than 100 people and cordoned off the surrounding area.
After about two hours, at 10:49pm, as Taipei City Government officials and Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) were at the site assessing the situation and leading operations, another large rumbling sound was heard and one of the buildings suddenly sank, with the first floor crushed underground.
The city government said that by yesterday, seven old residential buildings adjacent to the construction site — a private urban renewal apartment development by construction company Kee Tai Properties — were directly affected, and 454 people from 201 households from the seven and nearby buildings had been evacuated.
The city government’s preliminary assessment is that the incident occurred because the builders had excavated as far as three floors below ground, but did not complete the proper foundation work promptly, so the diaphragm wall was unable to withstand water and soil pressure and fractured. Kee Tai Properties on Friday admitted negligence and took responsibility for the matter, but the firm’s manager still could not be reached as of yesterday afternoon.
The city government filled the excavated area with grout to prevent further collapse and ordered Kee Tai to halt all of its construction projects in the city for inspections. It has also resettled the evacuated residents at hotels.
However, city councilors and civil engineers have pointed out possible regulatory flaws that led to the incident, which should not be overlooked.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Chen E-jun (陳怡君) said residents reported cracked walls and pipes in March. Kee Tai only filled the cracks in the walls, so the residents filed more complaints with the city’s Construction Management Office in April and May. The Department of Urban Development replied in June and July that “there is no risk to public safety,” “the project can continue” and that it would “not be listed for monitoring.”
Taipei City Councilor Miao Po-ya (苗博雅) and some civil engineers said that the city regulations for handling disputes over a construction causing damage to neighboring buildings stipulate that when the city government receives complaints about suspected damage, the construction company and its supervisors (architects and civil engineers) should assess whether the damage was caused by their work, allowing the company to “play the roles of player and referee simultaneously.”
Moreover, several city councilors referred to Kee Tai Properties’ poor record, including a construction site in Hsinyi District (信義) that caused concrete spalling and tilting of a nearby building, caused by a flawed pool design. The firm’s mangers have also been accused of illegal fundraising and prosecutors are still investigating them, the councilors said, asking how companies can be better monitored.
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) in April said that 72 percent of all households in Taipei, more than 640,000, are in buildings more than 30 years old, and policies have been introduced to encourage and accelerate urban renewal projects. Yet Thursday’s incident, as well as six sinkholes that occurred in the city this year, highlight several construction-related public safety issues and regulation flaws that the city government must address to protect city residents’ safety and property rights before approving more construction projects.
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS