The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislative caucus yesterday urged a temporary halt to all construction along railway lines nationwide and for the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) to carry out substantial reform.
The call came after Taroko Express No. 408 collided with a crane truck, which slid down a hill onto the tracks, as it was entering the Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) in Hualien County’s Sioulin Township (秀林) on Friday last week, killing 50 people and injuring 200.
Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of the crane truck and supervisor of the construction site next to the railway line, was detained on Monday.
Photo: CNA
TPP caucus convener Andy Chiu (邱臣遠) said that several train accidents have occurred in the past few years, including the major derailment of a Puyuma Express train in Yilan County in 2018, which caused 18 deaths.
After the Puyuma derailment, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) pledged “there would be no limit to the TRA’s reform,” and that personnel training, error-proofing mechanisms and hardware must be improved to ensure safe operations, but none of these promises have been fulfilled, Chiu said.
The TPP is to establish a TRA reform supervision task force and invite specialists to advise on the issues facing the company, he said.
Last week’s accident highlighted five areas in which the TRA must improve, including allowing construction projects to be contracted and subcontracted without effective project management, and allowing people and vehicles to enter construction sites that were supposed to be closed over the long weekend, Chiu said.
Other errors included not erecting barriers at the construction site above the railway line, projects not undergoing external review to avoid safety blind spots, and not knowing that it was illegal for Lee to be both the owner of the contracted company and site supervisor, he said.
The TPP urges the TRA to halt all construction projects alongside railway lines pending a thorough safety review, set up intrusion detection and disaster warning systems on railway lines within two years, and to implement a transportation safety management system, he added.
Meanwhile, lawmakers yesterday passed a TPP resolution requiring the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to present a plan for the improved supervision of the TRA within one month.
The resolution also stipulates that contractors with poor records are to be excluded from bidding for TRA projects, including those that change their name after a failed bid.
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday appealed to the authorities to release former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) from pretrial detention amid conflicting reports about his health. The TPP at a news conference on Thursday said that Ko should be released to a hospital for treatment, adding that he has blood in his urine and had spells of pain and nausea followed by vomiting over the past three months. Hsieh Yen-yau (謝炎堯), a retired professor of internal medicine and Ko’s former teacher, said that Ko’s symptoms aligned with gallstones, kidney inflammation and potentially dangerous heart conditions. Ko, charged with
RSS