I don’t get your point here. Why would imported corn starch be any safer than locally produced corn starch when used in such reckless manner? It was a dust explosion. Doesn’t matter if the dust was Made in USA or MIT.
Highly likely.
In videos of similar events in Europe and the US, the main stage seems to be free of any dust. The main stage is a good distance away from the crowd and colored dust. At Baxian, the dust covers the stage and equipments as well as the crowd.
[quote=“hansioux”]having absorbed and reflecting for a few days, here’s what I have to say…
The organizer and the hosting facility put no thoughts into understanding the potential dangers of such an event. The organizers probably should have imported colored powders from companies that makes these stuff, instead of just getting colored corn starch from local sources. The hosting facility absolutely shouldn’t have converted a pool into a concert hosting arena. That is illegal. Such converted space has no evacuation space and made rescue difficult.
It is terrible that so many young people have to suffer this tragedy, and they should be helped. People should find it in their hearts to help them.
At the same time, it seems odd that it is declared a national disaster and the deployment of 7,500 million NTD worth of second reserved disaster relief fund. Especially when the 2008 Morakot typhoon and the 2014 Kaohsiung gas pipe explosion weren’t declared as national disasters and not a single dime of central government’s funding went into disaster relief for those two disasters.
After the 2008 Morakot typhoon, President Ma denied foreign assistance, and 681 people died, 18 went missing. An entire village were lost in a mud slide, their body parts were found in mud covering Kaohisung city even after a month had gone by. In the 2014 Kaohsiung gas pipe explosion, 32 people died, 321 people were severely injured, most of them were fire fighters. Neither were declared a national disaster.
For me, these 3 events should either all have been national disasters or none of them should be.[/quote]
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Elections are near. That tints every action.
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The owners of the park are well connected.
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The South is… far away.
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Hopefully, they will accept even more outside help. There is already a team of Japanese doctors. Hope more experts can be invited to give a hand. Doctors here are already overstretched in normal conditions. These are not normal conditions.
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There is no way the NHI system can absorb all the costs of long term treatment and as said, there is also no way to squeeze even a drop of all the costs from the ones responsible, who will keep the courts tangled up if anything. As said, without any regulations in place, what are you going to accuse them off? With people expected to die over the course of months, you can’t even pin those murders on them due to time lapsed -my skeptic coworker had made that sarcastic comment in the case of the workers burned in that accident last year where they were arming explosives in a small room, as he claimed some were kept artificially alive so the responsible party wouldn’t be charged with manslaughter as they did not die immediately and directly as a result of the event.
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This tragedy is way too horrible and way too visible. I mean, you can take away anything from the Taiwanese, but touch their children? I just think that when the Taiwanese swear, the worst curse is “may your children die!”, not the ones about one’s mother. Their beloved children are hurting, their hopes and dreams charred as their bodies turn off slowly and painfully.
there is LOTS of money coming in. We are almost at, what, a billion NT in donations? plus the govt disaster fund, various insurances, health insurance, and so on. The country has done very well in this regard, and I’m sure whatever can be done for the victims will be done
Yes, as usual, Taiwanese rally when needed and the donations goals have been surpassed greatly.
I guess this has probably been talked about earlier in the thread, but how common are events like this worldwide? Plenty of my (university) students have been involved in colour runs over the past few years, where they’re sprayed with dust as they jog around, but I assume those clouds are significantly more limited - what about this kind of concert/party? Is this a common thing, and Taiwan was just the place where the luck first ran out on Russian roulette? Or was Taiwan the first (and one would hope the last) place to hold such an event?
I guess this has probably been talked about earlier in the thread, but how common are events like this worldwide? Plenty of my (university) students have been involved in colour runs over the past few years, where they’re sprayed with dust as they jog around, but I assume those clouds are significantly more limited - what about this kind of concert/party? Is this a common thing, and Taiwan was just the place where the luck first ran out on Russian roulette? Or was Taiwan the first (and one would hope the last) place to hold such an event?[/quote]
I go to a Holi party every year run by the Indian community in my city. It’s not being sprayed and people also chuck water about. There just aren’t enormous clouds of it – and everyone gets seriously covered in that stuff.
the liveleak video
youtube.com/watch?v=9fi2UnYOKmE
the idiot on stage was spraying through the sound equipment from way behind on the stage! and then seemed to make it worse by spraying even more
I guess this has probably been talked about earlier in the thread, but how common are events like this worldwide? Plenty of my (university) students have been involved in colour runs over the past few years, where they’re sprayed with dust as they jog around, but I assume those clouds are significantly more limited - what about this kind of concert/party? Is this a common thing, and Taiwan was just the place where the luck first ran out on Russian roulette? Or was Taiwan the first (and one would hope the last) place to hold such an event?[/quote]
As I said before, you cannot compare the density and amounts of people throwing handfuls of the stuff at each other -and then turning around and running like hell because someone will return the favor- to some people armed with machines at high pressure throwing very fine and less dense, far reaching clouds of the stuff in an enclosed environment where people cannot move not even to shake it off and it reaches ankle deep heights.
Then it gets ignited…
I have been in Holi celebrations in Taiwan and the worst concern of the organizers has been with containing the staining from the dusty coloring stuff to a certain area. Got the pictures somewhere but I am afraid the camera was also heavily dusted, so it is hard to appreciate what is going on. Icon is somewhat paranoid but I haven’t felt any danger aside from swallowing a mouthful of the stuff… and even that did not happen. It did take several washes to get it out of my hair, though. And my glasses. Nevertheless, the important part is that I hold it as a pleasant memory.
What pains me the most is that these few days I have been traveling around and encountered groups of young college kids, like the ones at the tragic party. The kids travel in groups and that is why you find so many mentions of groups of 5 or 7 friends who are all now in intensive care. As I watched them taking pictures of each other, playing around and generally just being young, I couldn’t help to think that those now in the hospital should be there instead of struggling to breathe, and I wish that as many of them will be able to have the experience of having fun again as it was meant to be.
[quote=“BlownWideOpen”]the liveleak video
youtube.com/watch?v=9fi2UnYOKmE
the idiot on stage was spraying through the sound equipment from way behind on the stage! and then seemed to make it worse by spraying even more[/quote]
You’re right!
He kept spraying the canister like he thought it would put out the fire!!! OH MY GOD!
[quote=“DJCJ”][quote=“BlownWideOpen”]the liveleak video
youtube.com/watch?v=9fi2UnYOKmE
the idiot on stage was spraying through the sound equipment from way behind on the stage! and then seemed to make it worse by spraying even more[/quote]
You’re right!
He kept spraying the canister like he thought it would put out the fire!!! OH MY GOD![/quote]
I feel bad for that guy. He saw flames and was holding a CO2 fire extinguisher; spraying it to try and put out the fire was the logical and obvious thing to do.
[quote=“aphasiac”]
I feel bad for that guy. He saw flames and was holding a CO2 fire extinguisher; spraying it to try and put out the fire was the logical and obvious thing to do.[/quote]
I can’t understand why CO2 and powder are so popular to put out fire. Water is so obvious.
[quote=“Stian”][quote=“aphasiac”]
I feel bad for that guy. He saw flames and was holding a CO2 fire extinguisher; spraying it to try and put out the fire was the logical and obvious thing to do.[/quote]
I can’t understand why CO2 and powder are so popular to put out fire. Water is so obvious.[/quote]
Water conducts electricity. CO2 and powder should “suffocate” any flame.
[quote=“Stian”][quote=“aphasiac”]
I feel bad for that guy. He saw flames and was holding a CO2 fire extinguisher; spraying it to try and put out the fire was the logical and obvious thing to do.[/quote]
I can’t understand why CO2 and powder are so popular to put out fire. Water is so obvious.[/quote]
Powder works in most fires (even more than water), and CO2 basically for any fire with open flames (makes an oxygen-poor environment and suffocates the flame).
Water doesn’t help in case of electrical fires (makes them MUCH worse!), or when the fuel is oil or oil-based, for example.
[quote=“Stian”][quote=“aphasiac”]
I feel bad for that guy. He saw flames and was holding a CO2 fire extinguisher; spraying it to try and put out the fire was the logical and obvious thing to do.[/quote]
I can’t understand why CO2 and powder are so popular to put out fire. Water is so obvious.[/quote]
Be careful with water on fire!
If there are heated glass bottles of alcohol, they will burst and cause more fire.
Pouring it over/into heated and/or burning oil will cause it to explode.
Blankets are a good choice in most cases.
[quote=“Blaquesmith”][quote=“Stian”][quote=“aphasiac”]
I feel bad for that guy. He saw flames and was holding a CO2 fire extinguisher; spraying it to try and put out the fire was the logical and obvious thing to do.[/quote]
I can’t understand why CO2 and powder are so popular to put out fire. Water is so obvious.[/quote]
Powder works in most fires (even more than water), and CO2 basically for any fire with open flames (makes an oxygen-poor environment and suffocates the flame).
Water doesn’t help in case of electrical fires (makes them MUCH worse!), or when the fuel is oil or oil-based, for example.[/quote]
Powder don’t work if not used correctly. It has to be put to the base of the flame. It’s has poor cooling quality and in cases like this will just help dust on the ground to be brought into the air and ignited. Also it need professionals for cleaning it up later because it get into everywhere.
CO2 is much more forgiving, but lack the quality of cooling.
Water dos not make electrical fires worse unless your using unclean or salty water. Normal tap water can easily be used for normal household voltages and destiled can go much higher. If you poor water into burning oil the water will sink and vaporize causing oil to be trow into the air and ignited. Using water on oilfire is safe if it’s vaporized and then sprayed on. It’s hard to put it out since you will need to use the water spray to push the flame front into a corner until it has nowhere to go and will burn out. This is tecnique I have learned, but do not master and would not recommend to anyone and is not practical for oil fires that most of us are likely to experience.
Going way off topic here, but I simply hate waters bad reputation and I have done commissioning on 690V switchboards with tons of electrical equipment where the client has showed up with powder meaning that if a fire ocours the damage from fire would be 1000$ and damage from powder penetrating stuff would be 100 000$
For the waterpark they should have taken responsibility to demand datasheet for any chemical or powder used in order to make an risk assignment.
The authorities should be hold responsible for not making regulations witch require staff in this kind of places to be trained in first aid, fire fighting and be able to simple selection of patient who should go first. I guess the politicians now will ban colorful powder instead of making regulations that any equipment used should have datasheet and organizers need to do risk assignment according to it + trained personnel.
On peripherally related news, one guy was released from the hospital, 20% burns, could have been worse. One.
The doctors are at a breaking point after 10 days of grueling around the clock efforts. Normal struggles are also brutal, with revelations of only 2 hours of sleep a week and 5 minute break for meals thrown around.
One more young man, a medical student, lost his battle. 73% burns.
4 RIP now…