President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday pledged to reform the nation’s building regulations, two days after a fire in Kaohsiung killed 46 people.
The death toll from the fire at the 13-story Cheng Chung Cheng (城中城) building in the early hours of Thursday was the second-highest in Taiwan’s history, behind a February 1995 blaze at the Weierkang Club in Taichung that killed 64.
Speaking after visiting those injured in the fire at the 40-year-old Kaohsiung building, Tsai said that building safety regulations were lax, adding that she had instructed the Cabinet to propose plans to improve the safety of all properties while facilitating urban renewal plans.
Photo: Huang Chia-lin, Taipei Times
She said that government agencies should work with local authorities to reinforce fire safety inspections in older buildings, as well as ramp up efforts to facilitate government-led projects aimed at redeveloping older buildings and neighborhoods.
The most pressing issue is a thorough check of all mixed-use buildings in Taiwan, especially those partially abandoned and in a state of disrepair, and attending to problems within buildings that pose a public safety risk, she said.
The Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例) states that the central or a local government can plan and implement a redevelopment project to renovate or reconstruct one or several buildings in a designated area.
However, in part due to complex property rights issues, projects involving older buildings often progress slowly.
On Friday, Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said that his ministry is considering amending the law to make it mandatory for all buildings to establish a management committee.
The ministry said that the committees are responsible for building repairs, maintenance and safety, as stipulated in the Condominium Administration Act (公寓大廈管理條例) promulgated in 1995.
However, the law does not apply to the 18,000 mixed-use buildings in the nation’s six special municipalities that were built before 1995, Hsu said.
Although local authorities have since encouraged the establishment of management committees in such buildings, 7,000 to 8,000 still do not have one, he added.
The ministry’s proposed amendment would mandate that all condominiums, regardless of whether they were constructed before 1995, must establish a management committee, Hsu said.
The proposed amendment would take into consideration that business sections of the building should contribute a portion of the management fee, he added.
Hsu also said that the proposed amendments would address loopholes such as buildings not being required to file public safety notices with the local government if the commercial section of the building is vacant, and buildings under 16 floors being exempt from filing public safety reports.
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
RSS