Right now it’s 4 dead and 20 injured.
Focus Taiwan English article.
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More news
Sounds unlikely… the ah bei part. Smoking ah bei in department store? Nah. Maybe a construction worker, but those are usually not ah bei’s.
I call, SOP not followed.
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Ok smoking construction worker ah bei in training it is then.
Or just some classic Taiwan half assing it on the safety protocols… either of those scenarios are a safe bet.
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If there were renovations there then probably spark from a wire or something
50% + 1?
My money is on the casually smoking construction man theory. If you spend any time watching these guys, it’s amazing that awful things like this don’t happen more often.
Guy
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5 dead now according to CNN and many others injured 
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Tend to agree as well. thing is, the issue isn’t the smoking, it’s the leak. I suppose it’s both. I guess they still haven’t said what happened. The woman quoted said she smelled gas.
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Many residential buildings in Taiwan are already equipped with gas leak detectors in the kitchens - similar to that one:
It seems that the mall did not have those or they were in-operational for some reason if people could already smell gas…
Different from a CO detector? Now I need both.
It looks like they had zero permits for the work going on inside (which had 35 workers) - 影／新光三越施工竟未申報開罰30萬 都發局：全面封館勘驗 | 新光三越氣爆 | 社會 | 聯合新聞網
And the maximum fine in this case is NT$ 300k:
According to the Building Act, if a building that is licensed for public use, such as a cinema or department store, is renovated without applying, according to Article 95-1, Paragraph 1 of the Building Act, if the business operator or the construction worker is caught, he or she will be fined between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000. Li Zhengwei said that the maximum penalty would be 300,000 yuan.
I’d assume that applying for and getting the permit is probably more expensive than just paying the fine…
Business as usual
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All the local news outlets said 4 dead and 26 injured…
Two of the dead and 5 of the injured are a family from Macau.
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Yea the gas can’t explode unless its mixed with air, and if it is then the spark is going to arrive sooner or later.
That was the kiss of death for Shinkong Mitsukoshi. The building has structural damage, the losses from closure - and people staying away from carnage site. The government fines might not seem much but the civil liabilities will be sustancial. The company is already in dire straits.
The family and bf of the 24 year old employee who died say she wanted to quit in March and that she shouldn’t have to be supervising/managing the dangerous situation. As per CTI tv news.
That Macau family was so unfortunate. Hope the child makes it.
There were 6 people trapped in the elevators after the explosion. One of the elevators dropped from 12 the to 9 the floor. Fortunately, all rescued.
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They seem to have just been walking by outside. Who expects to get killed like that from an exploding department store?!?
Guy
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Taichung Mayor Lu had a meeting. Denied the apparent rumor that has been going on online of a dust explosion. Confirmed to be a gas explosion. No one one the 12th floor was blown out of the building and flung to the ground.
Explosion originated from the 12th floor. Workers were cutting stuff and moving equipment there.
Also up to 4 deaths and 30 injured. I guess the only positive spin on this is that it didn’t happen on a weekend. Still devastating and gut wrenching to see this happen and so many people hurt and killed.
17min. news video from this evening.
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In an eerie coincidence, 25 years ago, on opening day, there was a gas explosion at Mitsukoshi too.
So they’re still not telling us what happened