The Taiwan Transport Safety Board has released the findings of its probe into this April’s deadly Taroko derailment, which killed 49 and injured more than 200 people. According to its report, the Taiwan Railways Administration is partly to blame for the crash. The report found that the TRA was advised to install barriers along a slope, after two construction vehicles fell down that slope earlier in the year. But the TRA did not make moves to install the barriers, which could have prevented the fatal crash.
The probe report on the Taroko Express derailment is out. It found the TRA at least partly culpable for the crash.
Yang Hung-chih
Taiwan Transport Safety Board
You ask how many problems can be blamed on the TRA. I could really list quite a few issues. After the Puyuma derailment in Yilan, 26 changes were recommended, and 18 of them were for changes for the TRA.
The probe reconstructed the final moments before the crash. Lee Yi-hsiang 李義祥, the manager of a construction site near the train tracks, was working with a migrant worker between 8:56 and 9:11 in the morning, unloading tires from a truck. After that, Lee tried to drive the truck down a slope, but it got stuck due to sudden engine failure. At 9:24 a.m., Lee tried to free the truck with an excavator, by pulling it by a rope tied to the excavator’s arm. Lee tugged on the truck twice, causing it to fall down the side of the slope and onto the train tracks.
The safety board says the Taroko Express train exited Heren Tunnel at a speed of 126 kilometers per hour. The train driver had only seven seconds to try and bring the train to a stop, before it crashed into the truck. Although a worker tried to signal for the train to stop, and the train driver activated the brakes, the train had only reduced its speed to 123 kilometers per hour when it collided with the truck.
Lin Pei-da
Taiwan Transport Safety Board
At the beginning of the year, there were two instances of a truck sliding down the slope. So they put up a fence with two traffic cones and they put up a warning banner.
The probe revealed that trucks had slid down that same slope before. The only response had been to put up traffic cones. The safety board listed the parties responsible for the incident.
The list includes United Geotech, which didn’t install any protective features on the slope. There’s also Tung Hsin Construction Company, for not paving the slope to improve grip, for parking trucks at the site illegally, and for hiring employees without valid working permits. The report also blames the TRA, which, prior to the start of construction, did not inform contractors of the dangers and risks of the project and did not implement entry and exit controls at the construction site. It also did not require workers to report attendance every day they were at the construction site. It did not earmark a budget to install Jersey barriers on the sides of the slope, which could have prevented the truck from falling on the tracks.
Chen Meng-shiu
Legal representative of derailment victims
I’d like to ask, premier, where are you? It’s been four months and we only ever heard from you at the beginning.
According to the crash victims’ lawyer, the TRA did not implement changes recommended by the safety board after the derailment in Yilan in 2018. She said that since the safety board has no authority over the TRA, the Executive Yuan should step in to reform the railway system.
