The Yilan District Prosecutors’ Office on Monday charged six people with negligence over the October 2019 collapse of the Nanfangao Bridge (南方澳橋) that killed six people and injured 12.
Four of the defendants are from companies contracted to oversee the bridge’s construction and supervision, while two are former officials in charge of construction at the Suao Port Branch of Taiwan International Ports Corp.
They have been charged with involuntary manslaughter and negligent injury, the prosecutors’ office said.
Photo: Chiang Chih-hsiung, Taipei Times
It said the collapse was the result of collective negligence by the defendants.
The contractor did not build the 140m suspension bridge according to the approved blueprint, the supervisory company failed to perform its job properly and the port management authority failed to conduct controls, maintenance and repairs as required, it said.
The contractor covered cables with loose-fitting high-density polyethylene tubes that did not attach to bridge anchor heads in an airtight manner, it said, adding that the anchor heads were not shielded against water.
As the waterproofing material on the anchor heads wore off, saltwater corroded the cables and joints inside, it said.
The office also charged the owner and a shareholder of the supervisory company with forging documents and fraud, after they were found to have hired unlicensed personnel to inspect bridges in Yilan County.
The company in 2018 illicitly gained NT$8.23 million (US$270,412 at the current exchange rate) in public funds by providing false information about inspectors to the Yilan County Government, prosecutors said.
The finding was made during the probe into the collapse and is not related to the incident, they said.
The corrosion issue was mentioned in a report by the independent Taiwan Transportation Safety Board in 2020.
Bureau official Yeh Ming-shan (葉名山) at the time said the bridge was prone to rust damage, due to saltwater and high humidity in the area.
Rain water also seeped into the anchoring mechanism and corroded the steel strands, he said.
The bridge underwent seven inspections since its completion in 1998, but they were all superficial visual inspections that failed to take into account that the bridge had specific design features that required closer examination, Yeh said.
No inspection had been carried out in the four years prior to the collapse, he added.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
NEW DESTINATIONS: Marketing campaigns to attract foreign travelers have to change from the usual promotions about Alishan and Taroko Gorge, the transport minister said The number of international tourists visiting Taiwan is estimated to top 8 million by the end of this year, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shi-kai (陳世凱) said yesterday, adding that the ministry has not changed its goal of attracting 10 million foreign travelers this year. Chen made the remarks at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee to brief lawmakers about the ministry’s plan to boost foreign visitor arrivals. Last month, Chen told the committee that the nation might attract only 7.5 million tourists from overseas this year and that when the ministry sets next year’s goal, it would not include
RSS