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.
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
RSS