The train was plunged into darkness, but Ms Wu could still make out other passengers falling on top of one another. There were bodies everywhere, some of them children. "It felt like hell," she recalled.
TAIPEI (REUTERS, BLOOMBERG, XINHUA) - A Taiwan express train with almost 500 aboard derailed in a tunnel on Friday (April 2) morning, killing at least 48 passengers and injuring dozens in one of the island's worst rail tragedies in 40 years.
The train had apparently hit a truck that slid off a nearby road leading to a construction site.
The Taroko Express was travelling from Taipei to the southeastern city of Taitung when it derailed north of Hualien around 9.30am local time, said the National Fire Agency.
The train, which has eight coaches, was carrying many tourists and people heading home to be with family at the start of a four-day long weekend amid the Qing Ming tomb-sweeping holiday.
Transportation and Communications Minister Lin Chia-lung told reporters at the accident scene that the train was carrying about 490 people – higher than an earlier figure of 350 given by the fire agency.
Taiwan media said that many people were standing as the train was full, and they were thrown about when it crashed, and showed pictures of survivors being led out the tunnel.
"People just fell all over each other, on top of one another,” one female survivor told local television. “It was terrifying. There were whole families there.”
Images of the crash scene showed carriages inside the tunnel ripped apart from the impact, while others crumpled, hindering rescuers reaching passengers, though, as at mid-afternoon, only two people remained trapped in the wreckage.
The 33-year-old train driver was killed in the derailment, United Daily News reported. His assistant, aged 32, also died in the crash.
The official Central News Agency said a truck whose handbrake was not engaged was suspected of sliding off a sloping road into the path of the train. The police had taken the driver in for questioning, the news agency said.
The fire agency showed a picture of what appeared to be the truck’s wreckage lying next to the derailed train and an aerial image of one end of the train sitting on the track next to a construction site.
“Our train crashed into a truck,” one man said in a video aired on Taiwanese television, showing pictures of the wreckage. “The truck came falling down.”
Part of the train was outside the tunnel and passengers in carriages still in the tunnel had to be led to safety, Taiwan Railways Administration said.
The train was plunged into darkness after it derailed and many passengers lost their sense of direction, EBC News reported. Some of them did not know what to do immediately after the crash while others tried to escape via the roof of the train.
Passengers told EBC News that the train braked several times just before the derailment. On impact, it shook violent and many people were thrown forward.
Images showed an injured passenger being stretchered out of the crash scene, her head and neck in a brace. Passengers were also seen gathering suitcases and bags in a tilted, derailed carriage while others walked out of the tunnel on the roof of the train.
Rescuers found 81 people who were seriously or slightly injured and sent them to several hospitals for treatment, according to Taiwan Railways Administration.
Passengers in carriages still in the tunnel had to be led to safety. PHOTOS: EPA-EFE/TAIWAN NATIONAL FIRE AGENCY, AFP/TAIWAN RED CROSS Passengers walking out of the tunnel on the roof of the train. PHOTO: AFP/TAIWAN RED CROSS
President Tsai Ing-wen has ordered the relevant departments to offer their best rescue efforts, and instructed the transportation ministry as well as Taiwan Railways Administration to deal with impacted traffic arrangements, Presidential Office spokesman Chang Tun-han said in text message.
“It’s regrettable that an accident happened on the first day of holidays, leading to heavy casualties. I share the sorrow with fellow countrymen,” said Ms Tsai.
In a statement, Transport Minister Lin said the railway administration had implemented more than 100 items of reform since the Puyuma accident. But they are obviously not enough, he added.
“I will surely shoulder all political responsibility," Mr Lin said.
The American Institute of Taiwan, which handles US ties with the island, expressed its "deepest condolences to the victims, families, and communities impacted by today’s tragic train derailment".
It said on Facebook: "We wish the people of Taiwan peace and comfort during this difficult time."
A Chinese mainland spokesman on Friday expressed condolences and sympathy to the casualties. “The mainland is highly concerned about the rescue progress,” said Mr Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.
Taiwan’s mountainous east coast is a popular tourist destination.
The railway that snakes down from Taipei hugs the coast and is known for its tunnels, in one of which the crash took place. The link to Taipei opened in 1979.
Taiwan’s state-owned railways are generally reliable and efficient, but have had a patchy safety record over the years.
In 1981, 30 were killed in a collision in northern Taiwan, and in 1991 another 30 died in a train crash.
TAIPEI: At least 48 people were killed and dozens more injured when a train derailed in a tunnel in Taiwan on Friday (Apr 2) after apparently hitting a truck, in the island's worst rail disaster in at least four decades.
The train, an express travelling from Taipei to Taitung carrying many tourists at the start of a long weekend, came off the rails north of Hualien in eastern Taiwan, the fire department said.
Images of the crash scene show carriages inside the tunnel ripped apart from the impact, while others crumpled, hindering rescuers reaching passengers.
Transport Minister Lin Chia-lung told reporters on the scene that the train was carrying about 490 people - higher than an earlier fire department figure of 350.
Taiwan's National Fire Agency said at least 48 people were confirmed dead with 66 others sent to hospital.
The accident occurred at about 9.30am.
A brief video released by the Central Emergency Operation Center inside the tunnel showed rescuers arriving on the scene and one twisted carriage door.
Another live broadcast by local news network UDN showed at least two undamaged train carriages outside the tunnel with rescuers helping passengers escape.
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Photo: Facebook/林銘鋒)
President Tsai Ing-wen's office said she had ordered hospitals to prepare for a mass casualty event.
"The top priority now is to rescue the stranded people," her office said in a statement.
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Photo: AP)
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Screengrab: Photo/林銘鋒)
Rescuers worked for hours to reach those trapped inside the tunnel and haul them out.
Footage released by the Taiwan Red Cross showed specialists with helmets and headlights walking on the roof of the stricken train inside the tunnel to reach survivors.
By mid-afternoon, officials said there were no people left inside the carriages.
Police said the accident was believed to have been caused by a construction vehicle sliding down an embankment and striking the train before it entered the tunnel.
"There was a construction vehicle that didn't park properly and slid onto the rail track," Hualien county police chief Tsai Ding-hsien told reporters.
"This is our initial understanding and we are clarifying the cause of the incident," he added.
Pictures from the scene showed the back of a yellow flatbed truck on its side next to the train.
"Our train crashed into a truck," one man said in a video aired on Taiwanese television, showing pictures of the wreckage. "The truck came falling down."
Part of the train was situated outside the tunnel, and those in carriages still in the tunnel were being led to safety, Taiwan's railway administration said.
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Photo: Facebook/林銘鋒)
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Photo: Facebook/林銘鋒)
Images showed an injured passenger being stretched out of the crash scene, her head and neck in a brace, passengers gathering suitcases and bags in a tilted, derailed carriage and others walking along the tracks littered with wreckage.
Some passengers walked out of the tunnel on the roof of the train, trailing their suitcases and bags behind, then climbed down between carriages to be greeted by rescuers.
"It felt like there was a sudden violent jolt and I found myself falling to the floor," an unidentified female survivor told the network.
"We broke the window to climb to the roof of the train to get out."
(Image: AFP)
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Photo: Facebook/林銘鋒)
The accident occurred at the start of a long weekend for the traditional Tomb Sweeping Day holiday.
Taiwan's mountainous east coast is a popular tourist destination, and the railway line from Taipei down the east coast is renowned for its tunnels and route that hugs the coast just north of Hualien where the crash occurred.
The line connecting Taipei with Hualien was only opened in 1979.
In 2018, 18 people died and 175 were injured when a train derailed in northeastern Taiwan. The driver of the eight-carriage train was later charged with negligent homicide.
That crash was the island's worst since 1991, when 30 passengers were killed and 112 injured after two trains collided in Miaoli.
Thirty people were also killed in 1981 after a truck collided with a passenger train at a level crossing and sent coaches over a bridge in Hsinchu.
In 2003, 17 died and 156 were injured after a train on the Alishan mountain railway plunged into a chasm at the side of the track.
HUALIEN/TAIPEI – At least 41 people are feared dead after a passenger train travelling down Taiwan’s east coast derailed on Friday (April 2) in what local authorities said was one of the country’s worst railway accidents in four decades.
Paramedics and firefighters are battling to extract survivors from the twisted wreckage of the 408 Taroko Express. The eight-car train, which had 488 passengers on board, had crashed into an engineering vehicle that was not parked properly just after exiting a tunnel north of Hualien city, said the Taiwan Railways Administration.
The vehicle was on a slope just off the tunnel’s southbound exit, and had slipped off as the Taroko Express passed by. It crashed into the train and caused the second and third cars to derail. Cars three to eight are still in the tunnel, as emergency services rush to extract passengers from both sides.
It is unclear why the engineering vehicle had been parked on a slope and left unmanned, said the Taiwan Railways Administration, which has convened an emergency response team to handle the accident.
The driver in charge of the vehicle has been taken to a police station for questioning, said Hualien County Police Bureau Chief Tsai Ting-hsien. The Taiwan Railways Administration is planning to demand compensation from the company that owns the vehicle. Taiwan media said many people were standing as the train was full, and were thrown about when it crashed.
Most of the fatalities were in the last two cars, authorities say. As of Friday noon, at least 41 people had been removed “without vital signs”, said the Taiwan Railways Administration. Another 72 were injured, and 61 had been taken to hospitals nearby.
Friday is the first day of the four-day Qing Ming tomb sweeping festival in Taiwan, in which many people travel back to their hometowns to visit their ancestors’ tombs.
Ambulances have been dispatched to help the passengers. “This is the first time I’ve heard in-tunnel announcements calling for cars to let ambulances pass,” said Ms Lin Yu-shan, who was on a bus in the 12.9km Hsuehshan Tunnel leading from the greater Taipei area to the east coast. The announcement was made shortly after the accident occurred, she said.
Taiwan’s last serious train accident happened in October 2018, when a Puyuma train derailed completely in Yilan, just north of Hualien. The Puyuma accident caused 18 deaths, and more than 200 people were injured.
Ms Lim said the site of the latest derailment was harder to reach because the only two roads to Hualien are always packed during the holidays.
TAIPEI: At least 36 people were killed and dozens more injured when a train derailed in a tunnel in Taiwan on Friday (Apr 2) after apparently hitting a truck, in the island's worst rail disaster in at least four decades.
The train, an express travelling from Taipei to Taitung carrying many tourists at the start of a long weekend, came off the rails north of Hualien in eastern Taiwan, the fire department said.
Images of the crash scene show carriages inside the tunnel ripped apart from the impact, while others crumpled, hindering rescuers reaching passengers.
The train was full, carrying around 350 people, the fire department said.
In their latest rescue operation update, police said 36 passengers were classified as "out of hospital cardiac arrest" - a term for someone showing no signs of life.
The police statement said 72 people were still trapped inside train carriages while 61 passengers had been sent to hospital.
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Photo: Facebook/林銘鋒)
The accident occurred at about 9.30am.
A brief video released by the Central Emergency Operation Center inside the tunnel showed rescuers arriving on the scene and one twisted carriage door.
Another live broadcast by local news network UDN showed at least two undamaged train carriages outside the tunnel with rescuers helping passengers escape.
Screengrab from a video released by hsnews.com.tw of passengers climbing out of a derailed train in Hualien County in eastern Taiwan, Apr 2, 2021. (Photo: hsnews.com.tw via AP)
Screengrab from a video released by hsnews.com.tw of passengers climbing out of a derailed train in Hualien County in eastern Taiwan, Apr 2, 2021. (Photo: hsnews.com.tw via AP)
Taiwan Railways Administration issued a separate statement saying "many" were without signs of life, citing the local fire department.
President Tsai Ing-wen's office said she had ordered hospitals to prepare for a mass casualty event.
"The top priority now is to rescue the stranded people," her office said in a statement.
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Photo: AP)
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Screengrab: Photo/林銘鋒)
Between 80 to 100 people have been evacuated from the first four carriages of the train, while carriages five to eight have "deformed" and are hard to gain access to, the fire department said.
Police said the accident was believed to have been caused by a construction vehicle sliding down an embankment and striking the train before it entered the tunnel.
"There was a construction vehicle that didn't park properly and slid onto the rail track," Hualien county police chief Tsai Ding-hsien told reporters.
"This is our initial understanding and we are clarifying the cause of the incident," he added.
Pictures from the scene showed the back of a yellow flatbed truck on its side next to the train.
"Our train crashed into a truck," one man said in a video aired on Taiwanese television, showing pictures of the wreckage. "The truck came falling down."
Part of the train was situated outside the tunnel, and those in carriages still in the tunnel were being led to safety, Taiwan's railway administration said.
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Photo: Facebook/林銘鋒)
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Photo: Facebook/林銘鋒)
Images showed an injured passenger being stretched out of the crash scene, her head and neck in a brace, passengers gathering suitcases and bags in a tilted, derailed carriage and others walking along the tracks littered with wreckage.
Some passengers walked out of the tunnel on the roof of the train, trailing their suitcases and bags behind, then climbed down between carriages to be greeted by rescuers.
"It felt like there was a sudden violent jolt and I found myself falling to the floor," an unidentified female survivor told the network.
"We broke the window to climb to the roof of the train to get out."
(Image: AFP)
A packed train derailed in a tunnel in eastern Taiwan on Apr 2, 2021, at the start of a long holiday weekend. (Photo: Facebook/林銘鋒)
The accident occurred at the start of a long weekend for the traditional Tomb Sweeping Day hospital.
Taiwan's mountainous east coast is a popular tourist destination, and the railway line from Taipei down the east coast is renowned for its tunnels and route that hugs the coast just north of Hualien where the crash occurred.
The line connecting Taipei with Hualien was only opened in 1979.
In 2018, 18 people died and 175 were injured when a train derailed in northeastern Taiwan. The driver of the eight-carriage train was later charged with negligent homicide.
That crash was the island's worst since 1991, when 30 passengers were killed and 112 injured after two trains collided in Miaoli.
Thirty people were also killed in 1981 after a truck collided with a passenger train at a level crossing and sent coaches over a bridge in Hsinchu.
In 2003, 17 died and 156 were injured after a train on the Alishan mountain railway plunged into a chasm at the side of the track.
YANGON (REUTERS, AFP) - Myanmar's deposed leader, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, has been charged with breaking a colonial-era official secrets law, her lawyer said on Thursday (April 1), the most serious charge against the veteran opponent of military rule.
Her chief lawyer, Mr Khin Maung Zaw, told Reuters by telephone that Ms Suu Kyi, three of her deposed Cabinet ministers and a detained Australian economic adviser, Sean Turnell, were charged a week ago in a Yangon court under the official secrets law, adding that he learnt of the new charge two days ago.
A conviction under the law can carry a prison sentence of up to 14 years. A spokesman for the junta did not answer telephone calls seeking comment.
Ms Suu Kyi, who is 75 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her efforts to bring democracy to Myanmar, appeared via video link for a hearing in connection with the earlier charges on Thursday.
"Amay Su and President U Win Myint are in good health," the lawyer said, referring to Ms Suu Kyi by an affectionate term for mother.
The President, a Suu Kyi ally, was also deposed and detained in the coup. He too faces various charges.
Their lawyers have said the charges against both of them were trumped up.
Mr Khin Maung Zaw told reporters: "She demanded a meeting between her and her lawyers - a private meeting to give her instructions to the lawyers and discuss the case without any outside interference by police or armed forces."
The next hearing will be April 12.
The junta is also probing the Nobel laureate over allegations that she took payments of gold and more than US$1 million (S$1.3 million) in cash, but Mr Khin Maung Zaw said these were not likely to translate into formal charges at this stage.
BANGKOK: As Myanmar descends into chaos, smartphone warriors in the anti-coup movement are seeking revenge online against the junta, hounding people with family ties to the military as a form of "social punishment".
The country has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February and the death toll from the violence has risen past 500 as the junta struggles to quash dissent.
Anger and grief over the crackdown are being channelled into an online campaign, with close to 170 people with relatives in the junta listed on a website as "traitors".
The site and a corresponding Facebook page - which had 67,000 followers before it was shut down - detail the personal information of these people, such as workplaces, universities and links to their social media accounts - a practice known as doxxing.
"We are here to punish families of the military or the people who are supporting the military. Never forgive, never forget!" the Facebook page said.
Facebook closed down the page for violating community standards, but other pages with smaller numbers of followers still exist.
"We will continue to closely monitor the situation on the ground in Myanmar," a Facebook spokeswoman said.
People with ties to the Myanmar military are being targeted in an online doxxing campaign by anti-coup activists. (Photo: AFP/STR)
The consequences of social punishment have resulted in some victims being forced to shut down their online businesses and a Myanmar university student in Japan quitting her studies, according to local media reports.
The campaign is broader in scope than those with family ties to the military - people not participating in the civil disobedience strike action are also being targeted and threats have been made to journalists who cover the junta's press conferences.
For Burmese living abroad, doling out "social punishment" to those with junta connections helps ease their sense of powerlessness as they watch from afar, said Yangon-born Cho Yee Latt, who now lives in Singapore.
"(Myanmar) people in Singapore can't do anything, so they feel very stressed out ... they are really angry," she told AFP.
Cho Yee Latt says she contacted the Singapore employer of a Myanmar woman who has a soldier boyfriend and was posting pro-coup messages online.
"We must destroy this corrupted system," she said.
"I only worry about Myanmar's poor who are being killed and arrested. The military families are living in foreign countries overseas, they are living high-class lifestyles, they won't be stressed at all."
Among those targeted is the doctor son of a senior minister, who later went on television to renounce his father.
Bryan Paing Myo Oo, based in Brisbane, Australia, suffered blowback on social media over his father Pwint San's role as commerce minister.
"People who deploy social punishment on me think they are doing the right thing. I want to add that I am participating in social punishment against my father," he told the BBC's Burmese-language programme.
"I texted him: 'Dad, you should quit right now. If not, you will lose me forever as your son.'"
Despite being targeted himself, he sympathises with the aims of social punishment as a way to further pressure the regime.
"I don't blame people for resorting to social punishment because people are being brutally gunned down in the streets, and this is the only weapon civilians have," he said.
The attacks on people with junta links are also being spread on Twitter.
"We will do social punishment to the whole family. We will punish them to the point that they want to kill themselves," one Twitter user wrote, posting pictures of a lieutenant general and his daughter.
Twitter said it was acting on abusive tweets, but experts say social media companies do not have enough Burmese-language moderators to keep up with the challenge.
The "with us or against us" mentality is also being pushed by a group of ousted MPs from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), who have been working underground against the junta.
The Committee for Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw has warned in a statement that "serious action" would be taken against those who are not part of the protest movement.
The tactic is not unique to Myanmar - during the Hong Kong political protests in 2019, doxxing was commonly used by both sides.
Police became a key target for protesters as clashes raged - especially after officers stopped wearing identification badges - while government loyalists outed Beijing's critics.
Cyber-hate expert Ginger Gorman, who penned a book called "Troll Hunting", says so-called "digilantism" where people seek to get back at others online can have serious real-world consequences.
"This kind of online hunting and extreme cyber-hate perpetrated against an individual is linked to huge harms including ... incitement to suicide, murder and real-life stalking and assault," she told AFP.
There have been isolated reports of the social punishment campaign spilling over into the physical world, with some people in Myanmar having their eyebrows and hair shaved off by anti-coup protesters, according to multiple social media posts.
