Taiwan train crash

This item appears on page 5 of the June 2021 issue.

On April 2, a passenger train carrying nearly 500 people from Taipei to Taitung, Taiwan, collided with a maintenance truck that had rolled down an embankment and onto the tracks, causing it to derail. Forty-nine people were killed and more than 200, wounded. The train was capable of traveling at about 90 miles per hour, but it was not reported how fast the train was traveling at the time of the accident.

The truck driver and maintenance crew all were charged with criminal negligence for not alerting authorities that the vehicle was stuck and for trying to free it themselves instead of getting a professional to help.