‘UNTIMED BOMBS’: Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yeh Yi-jin said that of the nation’s 29,811 bridges, 21,526 managed by local governments were of most concern
Taipei Times
Date: Oct 04, 2019
By: Hsiao Yu-hsin and Sherry Hsiao / Staff reporter, with staff writer and CNA1
The Nanfangao Bridge (南方澳橋) in Yilan County’s Suao Township (蘇澳), which collapsed on
Taiwan International Ports Corp chairman Wu Chung-rung, center, reacts as Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung, left, speaks at a question-and-answer session at the legislature in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
After construction of the bridge was completed in 1998, it was turned over to the Keelung Port Bureau — the predecessor of the TIPC’s Port of Keelung — Wu told the Legislative Yuan’s Transportation Committee in Taipei.
State-run TIPC was created in 2012, but since then the bridge was only inspected “that one time” by Taoyuan’s Chien Hsin University of Science and Technology, he said, referring to an inspection commissioned by the Yilan County Government and carried out by the university in 2016.
Of the 17 bridges under the company’s jurisdiction, one is the Nanfangao Bridge, three were built last year, five have been inspected and eight have never been inspected, he said. [FULL STORY]