Thursday, October 14, 2021

Anguish and anger after Taiwan building blaze kills 46


Issued on: 15/10/2021
 
The blaze is the latest tragedy to highlight concerns over lax safety standards in Taiwan 

Kaohsiung (Taiwan) (AFP)

Taiwanese residents voiced anguish and outrage on Friday after 46 people perished in an inferno that tore through a dilapidated housing block as investigators searched for what sparked the island's deadliest fire in decades.

The blaze is the latest tragedy to highlight concerns over lax safety standards in Taiwan and has exposed the poor living conditions of many elderly in a society that is rapidly ageing.

The fire broke out in the early hours of Thursday morning in a 13-storey, mixed-use building in the southern city of Kaohsiung, raging through multiple floors before firefighters finally got it under control.

The run-down housing block was in poor condition and many of those killed were low-income elderly people, some of whom had disabilities and dementia. Officials said 41 people were hospitalised.


On Friday morning Lee Mao-shen, 61, was watching pigeons land on the railings of an apartment where a friend had died the night before.

Lee, who has lived in a building opposite for 40 years, said his friend Cheng Yong-kang raised pigeons from his seventh- floor balcony and was among those who never made it out.

"We met every day to chat, we chatted the evening he died," he told AFP.

Lee described the neighbourhood where the fire broke out as "mostly working-class folks and old people".

The gutted complex where his friend died used to be a vibrant spot but, much like the rest of the district, it had fallen on hard times.

"There was a shopping mall, a cinema in there," he recalled. But in recent years the commercial floors were empty and abandoned.

- Exposed wiring -

Fire officials said one of the reasons the blaze burned so fiercely was that the bottom five commercial floors were filled with debris and discarded items that generated huge amounts of smoke, which then engulfed the residential apartments above.

The fire broke out in the early hours of Thursday morning Handout Kaohsiung Fire Department/AFP

Lin Chieh-ying, a retired ballet teacher who also lives opposite, said the building had become dilapidated 20 years ago when a fire broke out in a now-shuttered department store.

No one was killed in that blaze but much of the building fell into disrepair.

"Now there are always people drinking at night and being rowdy," she said. "They should have torn down that building 20 years ago."

The fire started on the ground floor, and multiple residents reported hearing loud bangs before seeing flames and smoke.

Local media published recent images from inside the building that showed exposed wiring, rusted water pipes and stairwells obstructed by detritus.

The Taipei Times quoted Kaohsiung Public Works Bureau director-general Su Chih-hsun as saying multiple fire safety issues were identified during inspections in 2019, 2020 and earlier this year.

But efforts to fix the issues were hampered by a dysfunctional building management committee, Su said.

As an island frequently battered by earthquakes and typhoons, Taiwan has strict building codes and a generally good safety record.

But there is often a gap between what the rules state and how safety standards are applied, especially in older buildings.


Kaohsiung's mayor said a task force would be set up to study the city's management of the building and other ageing structures.

Taiwan is one of the so-called "Asian Tigers" that saw its economy leapfrog last century with rapid industrialisation. But inequality is entrenched and many elderly people especially have been left behind.

Like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, Taiwan is rapidly ageing.

Last year the island recorded more deaths than births -- a watershed moment that signals its population officially contracted for the first time.

© 2021 AFP

Officials seek cause of Taiwan building fire that killed 46

By HUIZHONG WU

A woman stops to look at the burnt building in Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan on Friday, Oct. 15, 2021. Dozens were killed and dozens more injured after a fire broke out early Thursday in a decades-old mixed commercial and residential building in the Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung, officials said. 
(AP Photo/Huizhong Wu)

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwanese officials set up an independent commission Friday to investigate the conditions at a run-down building in the port city of Kaohsiung where a fire killed 46, while authorities scoured the blackened ruins for the cause of the blaze.

Prosecutor Hong Ruei-fen told reporters at the scene she would seek to determine the cause of Thursday’s fire as soon as possible, before donning a hard hat and walking into the cordoned-off building in the morning.

Outside, a Taoist priest in traditional robes chanted a prayer for those who died, many of whom were elderly or infirm residents unable to get out of the 13-story building after the fire broke out on the ground floor.

The city’s administration said the building had been required to follow fire codes and submit to inspections, but that inspectors had not been able to access the premises recently because the doors were always locked and they were unable to coordinate visits with the property owners.

Mayor Chen Chi-mai announced that he had ordered his deputy to set up an independent team to investigate whether negligence contributed to the tragic fire, in which another 41 people were injured.



Of the 46 dead, Chen said there were 21 who had still not been identified. He said experts hoped to use fingerprint analysis to determine who the other 19 dead were, but for two others they would have to rely on other methods.

The building had commercial facilities on lower floors, a closed movie theatre, restaurants and a karaoke bar — most out of business — and some 120 housing units above.

The fire broke out in the lower area at about 3 a.m. Thursday, and witnesses reported hearing a loud sound like an explosion. It took firefighters until after 7 a.m. to fully extinguish the blaze.

Local media say police were questioning a female resident of the building who allegedly discarded a burning incense coil in a trash can inside the apartment where she had also stored small gas canisters. A man who carelessly discarded a cigarette outside the building and the possibility of a fire in the electrical system were also being investigated, the reports said.

According to neighborhood residents, the building was home to many poor, older and disabled people, and many appear to have been trapped in their apartments.

Lee Mao-sheng, 61, who lives across the street, said his friend Tseng Yong-kang was wheelchair-bound and died in the fire.

In the past, the two would play mahjong together but Lee said he hadn’t seen his friend in a while because door in the building’s elevator frequently didn’t open and residents didn’t have the money to maintain it.

“The people who lived inside, many of them were not in good health. Many of them had a disability,” Lee said. Cheap rent was the main reason people lived there under less than ideal conditions, he said.






On Friday morning, a wire mesh fence and supporting scaffolding cordoned off the building and the street in front was open again to traffic. The building did not seem in immediate danger of collapse, though its lower floors were blackened and smoke marked the exteriors of the upper apartments.

Tsai Hsiu-Chin, 70, who had lived in the building for 15 years, said she escaped with just the clothing on her back after hearing someone screaming “fire” at 3 a.m.

“I didn’t bring anything. I just cared about saving my life,” she said, sitting opposite the charred building on Thursday night, trying to process her experience over a beer with a friend.

The building’s age and piles of debris blocking access to many areas complicated search and rescue efforts, officials said, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.

The decades-old apartment building is one of many in the Yancheng district, an older part of Kaohsiung, a city of some 2.8 million people in southwestern Taiwan.

Fire extinguishers had been installed last month, but only three per floor because the residents could not afford to pay more, the United Daily News, a major newspaper, reported.

A 1995 fire at a nightclub in Taichung, Taiwan’s third-largest city, killed 64 people in the country’s deadliest such disaster in recent times.

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Taijing Wu contributed to this story.


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