A year before my studies, I worked in a silo at a harbor unloading ships filled with flour.
During the six month working there, we had tree smaller dust explosions.
One time, a silly guy was welding at the bottom iron part of the 60 meter silo tower, while the other silly guy in the control center started to load flour or moving flour to or from that silo.
Of course, that guy flew of the ladder. Luckily the explosion wasn’t as big as it possibly could have been.
On time, someone was welding at the enclosed conveyor belt. An hour later that belt was back in service.
I was just about to walk past it when it blew up.
Under the right conditions, dust explosions can take out whole neighborhoods.
I’m posting this in the “Taiwan Politics” section mainly because I know this is going to turn into a political circus.
Some of you may not yet be aware of the disaster last night at the Formosa Water Park near Tamsui. It wasn’t reported in today’s Taipei Times, though perhaps it will be later today (I’m posting this at 8 AM).
No doubt there will be saturation coverage in the media, so no need for me to go into the details.
Anyway, it’s all a horrible tragedy, and I’m very sympathetic to the victims. But my main reason for posting is the political angle. Since it happened in Xintaibei, I’m predicting calls for Eric Chu to take responsibility and resign. There seems to be an unofficial rule in Taiwanese politics: “Let no human tragedy go unexploited.”
Perhaps an underling who had nothing to do with the tragedy whatsoever will have to fall on his sword. The people who actually did cause the disaster will barely get a footnote in the press.
It was painful enough watching the video of all those innocent people being caught in the fire - it will be even more painful watching video of grandstanding politicians foaming at the mouth over the next month or two.
Last year or the year before that Kaoxiong prohibited a ‘color-run’ … same principle. It’s flour, mixed with food colors the organizers said, why waste food to throw into the air and inhale small particles of flour into your lungs while running … hey it’s colorfull-funny. It’s being done all over the world now. Now there is a precedent set to not allow them, the ‘color-runs’
BTW, dust explosions happen more than you think, that’s why at loading or unloading, trucks and silos need to be earth connected to prevent sparks from static electricity.
Thanks for letting me know about the thread in the Open Forum. I didn’t see that.
The story is also front-page news is the Liberty Times, which is the Taipei Times Chinese-language paper, so I’m a little surprised that the TT doesn’t have the story. I guess their deadlines are much earlier in the day.
The Yesterday Times is usually a day behind because they have to go through the processes of translating into English, editing, and then taking care of page layout. It’s understandable for print, but they should really work on live updates for the website like Focus Taiwan, Taiwan News, and even China Post do.