Taiwan orders faulty buses off road after deadly fire

TAIPEI: Taiwan yesterday ordered almost half the tour buses inspected after a recent bus inferno — which killed dozens of Chinese tourists — off the road after they failed new safety checks.

Twenty-four Chinese tourists and two Taiwanese nationals died in the fi re earlier this month, the worst road accident ever to hit mainland visitors to the island — raising major safety questions.

Nine of 20 buses of the model which caught fi re have been taken off the road due to problems with circuit fuses and storage batteries, highway department officials said yesterday.

Three more such buses had minor issues, which authorities have ordered be repaired.

The bus, operated by the Mei Kui Shih Transportation Company, caught fi re and smashed through an expressway barrier last week, just a few kilometres from Taipei’s Taoyuan airport.

Taiwanese prosecutors are probing the exact cause of the disaster and say the fi re started at the front of the bus, near the driver’s seat.

Questions have also been raised over the driver’s mental state after five bottles of gasoline were found in the bus — despite regulations banning inflammable substances in a vehicle.

“We have twice searched residences of the driver and looked into his medical records to clarify his mental state prior to the accident,” said Wang Yi-wen, a spokesman for the Taoyuan district prosecutors’ office.

The driver’s relatives and coworkers are also being questioned, he added.

Distraught relatives of the Chinese victims have questioned why no one was able to escape through the emergency exits when the fi re ripped through the bus.

Pictures from the scene showed two men outside the bus trying to smash windows open with fi re extinguishers.

One eyewitness said trapped passengers inside the bus had been pounding on the windows as it careered off the road.

Chinese officials have demanded Taiwan take measures to ensure the safety of mainland visitors to the island. — AFP