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.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS