New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) today said he is to order a third-party review of two incidents last week in which city-operated elevators malfunctioned and fell soon after undergoing maintenance.
The first of the incidents occurred on Tuesday last week, when the cable of an elevator at the New Taipei City Funeral Parlor in Banciao District (板橋) snapped, causing it to drop from the building's second floor to the ground, lightly injuring the three workers inside.
Photo: Chen I-shao, Taipei Times
Yesterday afternoon, a pedestrian overpass elevator near New Taipei City Hall Square, where a kids' Halloween event was taking place, also malfunctioned and fell from the second floor to the ground.
A 55-year-old woman in the elevator sustained a broken foot in the fall, while her eight-year-old nephew was treated for lacerations.
According to the city government, both malfunctioning elevators had recently undergone scheduled maintenance and inspections, on Oct. 7 and Oct. 17 respectively.
During an appearance at the New Taipei City Council today, Hou said that following the incidents, he ordered that safety inspections be conducted on all public, city-operated elevators within the next two months.
Beyond that, the city government would also hire an organization to conduct a third-party inspection to find out why the elevators malfunctioned so soon after undergoing maintenance, Hou said.
The city would cover the medical expenses of those hurt in the accidents, and would help them seek financial compensation once legal responsibility for the failures has been determined, he added.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS