One person died and two others remain trapped after a two-story building in Taichung’s Central District (中區) collapsed yesterday morning, the local Fire Bureau said.
As of press time last night, rescue work was ongoing.
The bureau said rescuers were immediately dispatched to the scene on Section 1 of Taiwan Boulevard after it received reports of the incident at 10:44am.
Photo courtesy of Taichung Fire Bureau via CNA
The building was a 100-year-old structure made of timber beams, bricks and metal roofing, the Taichung City Government said, citing a preliminary investigation.
Construction workers were digging into the foundation of an adjacent lot — the site of a house that was demolished last year — when the two-story building toppled and fell on the work site, trapping three workers under the wreckage, it said.
A man pulled from the rubble at 11:15am showed no vital signs and was pronounced dead at 12:07pm after efforts by doctors at Taichung Hospital to resuscitate him failed, the bureau added.
The man was severely injured, with bleeding in his abdomen, and bone fractures in his pelvis, hands and legs, the hospital said.
The bureau’s rescue dog team was able to find the general location of the two trapped workers, but excavators could not be utilized as they might trigger another collapse, the bureau said.
At 5pm, rescuers saw the top of the head and part of the hand of a worker amid the rubble, but the man did not respond when they called out to him, it said.
Officials from the Ministry of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Taichung Urban Development Bureau identified a number of code violations on the work site, including a lack of rebar struts.
The construction site was ordered to halt all work and pay separate fines of NT$300,000 and NT$18,000.
A Taichung district prosecutor has visited the site to investigate whether negligent homicide charges should be filed.
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