As Taiwan was preparing for the annual gatherings for the Tomb Sweeping Holidays, an unfortunate tragedy occurred on April 2, 2021, as the Taroko Express operated by the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) derailed at Qingshui Tunnel in Hualien County. The train was carrying 494 passengers and of those, at least 50 were killed and at least 200 more injured by the accident. This all came ahead when a construction truck North of Hualien City that had been resting on a slope, fell down onto the train tracks. This has been the deadliest train crash in Taiwan’s history, the second deadliest train accident in the country, and the most recent in a list of vehicle accidents, calling into question whether vehicle safety management is really being taken seriously on this island. 

Close up of the damage on the express after the collision

The 2nd of April happened to be the first of the four-day Qingming Festival holiday, which brought along an expected high amount of traffic in the area, which is also an explanation for why many of the train passengers had been standing at the time of the accident. The Taroko Express itself was an eight-car tilting train that could reach a maximum speed of 130 km/h, so out of safety concerns for passengers, the TRA originally did not sell standing seats for their trains. But due to the high passenger demand for tickets, especially during holiday seasons, they started to sell 120 standing tickets per train after May of 2019 after running safety tests. There was also construction that started in April 2019 to improve the slope stability near the north end of the tunnel. 

At 07:18, the Taroko Express departed from Shulin (in New Taipei) started heading south for Taitung, and had a scheduled arrival at Hualien at 09:39. However, at 09:28, as the train started to enter Qingshui Tunnel, the train derailed while on the eastern track. The construction to the north end of the tunnel was nearly complete by that time, but a flatbed truck used in the construction was still there and slid down the 20 meters off the side of a hill and onto the train tracks. The train conductor did not have enough time to react, and the train collided with the truck. The truck driver was not in the vehicle at the time and no construction was ongoing as it was the holidays. Car No. 8 suffered the brunt of the damage from being at the front of the train and colliding with the truck before the train entered the tunnel, which is what caused the train to partially derail and crash into the interior wall of the tunnel. 

As of now, there are 50 confirmed deaths, including the train driver and train assistant. The majority of the deaths came from the cars at the front of the train (Car No. 8 and Car No.7), while another 202 passengers were injured. The search and rescue workers as well as emergency staff were dispatched onto the scene quickly and the passengers in the four carriages at the back were mostly evacuated, but the front four carriages were harder to access, having received major damage. The carriages at the back had to be moved from the tracks the following morning, and they found footage of the accident from the truck’s dashcam soon after. The Taiwanese government ordered the following three days to be for national mourning and for the national flags to be lowered to half-mast at schools and government buildings starting April 3. The Deputy Minister of Transportation stated that the TRA would review its standard operating procedures for construction work sites, and a restriction on the number of standing seats sold for trains is being considered after this incident. 

Passengers of the express being evacuated

After an investigation by the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board (TTSB), the truck driver, Lee Yi-hsiang, was taken into custody, but released on bail on April 4th. However, he was found to be a flight risk and as a risk for colluding with evidence, so he was taken back into custody on April 5th. It is suspected that he parked the truck without utilizing the parking brake, ultimately causing the truck to roll down and collide with the train. From the train’s dashcam footage, it was found that the train driver took notice of the truck after the train had left the tunnel before Qinshui Tunnel, but since the train was traveling at 100 km/h, the driver only had 6.9 seconds to react, and therefore did not have any time to stop the train. 

Despite Taiwan’s advanced transportation system, this latest incident is just one amongst a growing number chalked up to negligence and human error. Taiwan is no stranger to vehicle accidents, and this has once again brought back into the spotlight whether Taiwan is doing enough to protect their citizens’ safety and prevent accidents. Other recent accidents in the country’s history include:

• 2014 chemical explosion due to negligence in underground pipelines (32 deaths) 
• Train derailment in 2018 by a faulty alert system and a driver who failed to slow down (18 deaths)
• Deadly fires inside factories that were housing workers 
• 2019 bridge collapse (4 deaths)

Grieving relatives, held makeshift shrines and wept at the crash site on Saturday as they held a prayer for the families and friends of the victims.

Families of the crash victims holding a memorial at the site of the crash