Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/06/30
By: Tseng Ying-yu, Lin Yi-feng and Kuo Chung-han

Taipei, June 30 (CNA) In return for Taiwan’s financial and friendly support of Japan following the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, a Japanese company has donated non-adherent gauze to treat the victims of a fiery blast at a New Taipei water park June 27.

Yoichiro Kawaguchi, president of Fuji Systems Corp., wrote to his friend in Taiwan and said he would like to donate the Trex non-adherent silicone-treated gauze for treating burn victims, according to a Monday Facebook post by Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬).

Since the message went viral on the Internet, the firm has received hundreds of messages from Taiwan to thank it for its help.

Fuji Systems posted an update on its Facebook page saying that “we have read all the messages from you. We received a lot of support from Taiwan at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, and we are glad if we can help the people who were injured even just a little. We hope that people will soon recover from their injuries.”     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-06-30
By: CNA

Taiwan’s Chiayi District Court on Monday awarded total damages of NT$10.59 million

(US$342,000) to nine Chinese tourists who had sustained serious injuries in a bus accident in the city three years ago.

In August 2012, a tour bus crashed into an underpass at the intersection of Boai and Shixian roads in Chiayi city, injuring 20 Chinese passengers, nine of them seriously.

The nine Chinese passengers subsequently filed a lawsuit against the travel agency, the tour bus company, and the Taiwanese driver.

The driver was convicted on charges of criminal negligence that had caused bodily harm and was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine. It was determined that the bus had crashed because it had entered the underpass at a point that was too low to gain clearance.    [FULL  STORY]

Three tons of starch-based powder caught fire when sprayed from stage

Journal of Emergency Medical Services
Date: Jun 29, 2015
By: RALPH JENNINGS, Associated Press

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Investigators in Taiwan were focusing Monday on the possibility that a cigarette butt or spark caused the blaze that burned 498 people, killing one, at a weekend water park party when colored powder sprayed from the stage caught fire.

A 20-year-old woman with burns to 90 percent of her body died after being taken off life support with her family’s consent, said a hospital spokeswoman, who spoke anonymously because she wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

Taiwan’s Central News Agency said her 12-year-old brother also had burns on 90 percent of his body.

Police recommended criminal charges against the organizer of Saturday’s party, as well as two technicians, at the Formosa Fun Coast park in suburban Taipei.

“It’s still not clear what happened, but there were a number of people smoking and the weather was warm,” New Taipei City news department head Lin Chieh-yu said. Temperatures around greater Taipei topped 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 F) before the party.

The three tons of colored starch-based powder bought by the organizers from Tai Won, a seller in the island’s southern county of Yunlin, were flammable, said Chou Hui-fang, a representative of the seller. She said the buyer was informed about the risk of fire.

Taipei Times
Date:  Jun 30, 2015
By: Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Taipei’s and New Taipei City’s disaster evacuation procedures should be more closely

integrated, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.

Both cities’ hospitals were flooded with patients following an inferno at the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) water park in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里) on Saturday, which injured almost 500 people.

Although Taipei and New Taipei City are a single metropolitan area, we still have two separate administrative systems,” Ko said, adding that many seriously injured victims had been forced to transfer hospitals after they were not sent to the appropriate hospitals in the first instance.

Taipei sent 144 ambulances to assist New Taipei City’s disaster response.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/06/29
By: Wang Chao-yu & Bear Lee

Taipei, June 29 (CNA) The number of people injured in a fire that broke out at a water

park in New Taipei Saturday night was revised down to 494, according to the latest statistics released by the health department of the New Taipei city government late Monday.

The figure was five less than the number counted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare Monday morning.

The fire broke out when a flammable powder apparently exploded at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday during a stage performance at Formosa Fun Coast Water Park (八仙樂園) in New Taipei’s Bali District, resulting in the greatest mass injuries that Taiwan has ever had.

The injured, including 211 under intensive care, were being treated at 48 different hospitals in Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, Hsinchu, Changhua and Kaohsiung, the statistics showed.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-06-29
By: Samuel Hui and Staff Reporter

Hau Pei-tsun, a former ROC premier and head of the country’s military, has said Taiwan

has more right than Japan and the People’s Republic of China to interpret the history of the Second Sino-Japanese War at an event held in Taipei to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the victory over Japan (the formal surrender was on Sept. 2, 1945) by the Chinese Women Party and our sister paper Want Daily on June 29.

“China was able to resist the invasion of an imperial power as a backward and divided nation due to the leadership of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek,” Hau said. “Under his leadership, China was able to abolish all the unequal treaties signed with Western powers 150 years ago and emerge as one of the world’s four great powers with the United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain.”

As an artilleryman who engaged imperial Japanese forces on the battlefield, Hau said that the right to interpret the history of the war of resistance belongs to the ROC government in Taipei, not to Beijing. While admitting a “limited contribution” by the Chinese Communist forces of Mao Zedong, he pointed out that both the Communist Party’s Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army were nominally part of the ROC Armed Forces under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek.     [FULL  STORY]