TAIPEI: The proprietor of a building truck that brought about Taiwan’s worst rail accident in many years, killing 48 individuals, apologised in tears whereas being led away from his dwelling by police on Sunday.
The unmanned truck’s emergency brake was not correctly engaged, in keeping with the federal government’s catastrophe reduction heart.
An investigation is underway as to how precisely Lee Yi-Hsiang’s automobile slid down onto the tracks Friday from a close-by building web site on the mountainous coast of japanese Hualien county.
The truck was hit by a passenger practice carrying 494 individuals, which derailed simply earlier than coming into a tunnel, crushing many passengers contained in the mangled practice carriages.
The demise toll was revised all the way down to 48 on Sunday, after rescuers initially stated 51, then 50 individuals have been killed.
The modifications got here after some physique components have been discovered to belong to 1 particular person, a spokesperson for the Central Emergency Operation Heart stated.
At the very least 198 individuals have been injured.
I’ve brought about a critical accident on the Taiwan Railway Administrations’ Taroko practice quantity 480 throughout this 12 months’s Tomb Sweeping Holidays, inflicting deaths and accidents, to this I specific my regret and my sincerest apologies, stated Lee, who can be the development web site’s supervisor, his phrases muffled by a face masks and by emotion.
”I’ll cooperate with the authorities’ investigation absolutely, and take duty.” he stated.
Prosecutors in Hualien county beforehand stated they have been searching for an arrest warrant for the truck’s proprietor, who was questioned together with a number of others.
The Hualien district court docket initially allowed Lee to publish bail of 500,000 new Taiwan {dollars} (USD 17,516), however that call was reversed Sunday when the next court docket in Hualien rescinded the decrease court docket’s determination to permit bail, Taiwan’s Central Information Company reported.
Practice journey is in style throughout Taiwan’s four-day Tomb Sweeping vacation, when households usually return to their dwelling cities to pay respects on the gravesites of their elders.
It is also a possibility to take a trip.
Taiwan is a mountainous island, and most of its 24 million individuals stay within the flatlands alongside the northern and western coasts which are dwelling to a lot of the island’s farmland, largest cities and high-tech industries.
The evenly populated east the place the crash occurred is in style as a vacationer vacation spot, and the railway line is understood for its lovely pure surroundings.
