Sat, May 11, 2024 page3

• Groups urge action over MRT accident

  ACCOUNTABILITY: Paying compensation to people and the commendation of Lin Shu-ya by the president do not make up for the lack of criminal proceedings, protesters said

  • By Shih Hsiao-kuang and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  Control Yuan members and groups yesterday called for accountability over the fall of crane boom onto the tracks of the Taichung Mass Rapid Transit System (MRT) last year, causing a crash in which a woman died, in a protest at the National Human Rights Commission’s doorsteps in Taipei.

  The protest marked the first anniversary of the incident in which a train crashed into the fallen crane, killing legal academic and indigenous rights advocate Lin Shu-ya (林淑雅) and injuring 10 others.

  A coalition of 20 groups including the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, and Control Yuan members Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津), Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇), Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠), Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華) and Pasuya Poiconx jointly held the event.

  

  Protesters hold up banners demanding accountability for the Taichung Mass Rapid Transit System’s fatal train crash at a demonstration in Taipei yesterday.

  Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times

  In the one year following the disaster, none of the people involved in the engineering project that placed the crane were punished and the crucial Transportation Safety Board (TSB) investigative report has not been published yet, protest organizers said in a statement.

  Multiple official inquiries by the Control Yuan, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Taichung City Government, and the TSB’s preliminary report pointed to human errors as the cause of the incident, they said.

  The reports identified mistakes, inadequate safety precautions, poor communication and negligence of duty at OSHA, the Taichung Urban Development Bureau and Taichung Mass Rapid Transit Corp, they said, adding that the Control Yuan issued a corrective measure over the crash.

  Taichung City Government officials should be held responsible for their failure to supervise project contractor Highwealth Construction Co — the firm in charge of the construction of the construction site from which the crane boom fell — but it has not happened, they said.

  Paying compensation to the victims and Lin’s family members does not make up for the lack of criminal proceedings against the responsible parties, the organizers said.

  Far from an isolated incident of misfortune, the disaster underscored the nation’s systematic failure to take necessary measures and the need for comprehensive reforms in public construction, they said.

  Government agencies and private enterprises should not be allowed to outsource their responsibility for public safety or liability to subcontractors, the organizers said.

  Subcontractors too often were made to shoulder the blame for workplace incidents, while government offices and businesses shirked their duty to prevent accidents from happening, they said.

  President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) posthumous commendation of Lin Shu-ya was not a substitute for justice and accountability, they added.
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