In this image taken from video by Taiwan's EBC, firefighters battle a blaze at a building in Kaohsiung, in southern Taiwan on Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021. A fire engulfed a 13-story building overnight in southern Taiwan, the island’s semi-official Central News Agency reported Thursday. (EBC via AP )
By Huizhong Wu
At least 46 people were killed and another 41 injured after a fire broke out early Thursday in a decades-old mixed commercial and residential building in the Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung, officials said.
Neighborhood residents said the 13-story building was home to many poor, elderly and disabled people and it wasn’t clear how many of the 120 units were occupied.
Witnesses said they heard something that sounded like an explosion at about 3 a.m. when the blaze erupted in the building's lower floors, which housed a closed movie theater, abandoned restaurants and karaoke clubs.
Lin Chie-ying said she was awoken in her home across from the fire by the sounds of ambulances and fire trucks.
“I thought our home would burn up too,” she said.
The apartment building is one of many in the Yancheng district, an older part of Kaohsiung, a city of some 2.8 million people in southwestern Taiwan.
“For the families and Yancheng, I feel incomparable pain and I blame myself deeply,” Mayor Chen Chi Mai said at a news conference, bowing in apology. “Here I want to express my deepest sorrow to all the wounded and those who died, as well as their families and all the residents.”
It took firefighters until after 7 a.m. to extinguish the blaze. Many of the upper floors appeared not to have been damaged directly.
Late in the day, the smell of smoke still lingered throughout the area and the sound of shattering glass rang. Construction workers were raised on a crane to break out the remaining glass from window frames with a crowbar to remove further hazard.
Throughout Thursday, first responders pored through the wreckage and recovered dozens of bodies. Another 14 of 55 taken initially to the hospital were confirmed dead on arrival or shortly after.
The building’s age and piles of debris blocking access to many areas complicated search and rescue efforts, officials said, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.
It appears the fire broke out on the ground floor but it was not immediately clear exactly where and the cause was still under investigation.
The United Daily News said that investigators were focusing on a first-floor tea shop where the fire had started, and police were looking into a resident who reportedly fought with his girlfriend earlier on Wednesday. They had not ruled out arson, the newspaper said.
Fire extinguishers had been installed last month, but only three per floor because the residents could not afford to pay more, the United Daily News, a major newspaper, reported.
A 1995 fire at a nightclub in Taichung, Taiwan’s third-largest city, killed 64 people in the country’s deadliest such disaster in recent times.
VR/AR collaboration platform Spatial is diving head first into the Metaverse. The company is switching up its image--now branding itself as 'the metaverse for cultural events,' aiming to become the new virtual hub for NFT galleries, brand experiences, and large-scale conferences. Jacob Loewenstein, Head of Business, Spatial, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss the company's pivot.
e.l.f Beauty is celebrating a significant milestone in its sustainable journey. Since launching its Project Unicorn initiative in 2019, the company has eliminated more than one million pounds of packaging materials. Ashley Rosebrook, e.l.f. Beauty's chief creative officer, who spearheaded this effort and has continued to work to reduce the brand's carbon footprint, joined Cheddar to discuss this initiative and what the company aims to do next.
The Omicron variant is raising concerns about how safe it is to travel, just as millions of Americans were getting ready to jet set away for the holidays. Scientists are still trying to understand how much protection vaccines offer against the new variant, and many questions remain unanswered. Sara Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants, gives tips on how to travel safely and comments on the aviation industry's ongoing recovery from the pandemic.
Carlo and Baker cover the latest data showing the Omicron wave has likely started, Pfizer's Covid pill, Jan. 6 and a box office rescue attempt courtesy of Spider-Man.
As 2021 is approaching its end, the meme stock mania that surrounded companies like Gamestop and AMC this year doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Stocks for both companies plunged to their lowest levels in months on Monday, but on Tuesday, traders seemed to come to the rescue, as the stocks for both companies saw rebounds. Great Hill Capital Chariman Thomas Hayes joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Upward Farms is an indoor vertical farming company on a mission to heal our broken food system and reconnect consumers with organic locally-grown food. The Brooklyn-based company uses its controlled environment farms to grow organic leafy greens, which are sold at whole foods markets in New York City. Upward Farms co-founder and CEO Jason Green joined Cheddar Climate to discuss.
Cheddar is looking back at the 12 biggest buzzwords of the year leading up to Christmas. Today's word of the day is "Infrastructure." Definition: (noun) the basic physical and organizational systems that uphold the structure of the economy.
The U.S. cannabis industry is on track to hit almost $25 billion in sales, according to New Frontier Data. Vivien Azer, managing director and senior research analyst at Cowen, and Russell Stanley, managing director and equity research at Beacon Securities Limited, join Cheddar News to give their predictions for the budding industry in 2022.
As more states begin to legalize recreational marijuana, there's a growing interest in legalizing cannabis cultivation. As the rise in cannabis farms expands across the U.S., more research is being done to examine its impact on the planet. Michael Katz, executive director at Mendocino Cannabis Alliance, joins Cheddar News to talk about the carbon footprint of cannabis farms.
