The Forestry Bureau under the Council for Agriculture (COA) yesterday insisted that the train accident on a railway in Alishan on Wednesday was caused by a random event, and not human error.

A mainland Chinese official in charge of cross-Taiwan Strait relations who is visiting Taiwan paid a call yesterday on Chinese tourists who were injured in a train crash on the scenic Alishan mountain railway a day earlier.

In an inspection of Chiayi County poultry farms surrounding one with a documented history of avian infection, H7N3 avian virus, not the originally targeted H5N2 strain, has been found, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine (BAPHIQ) under the Executive Yuan's Council of Agriculture (COA) said in a press release yesterday.

A traditional high swing competition in Chiayi City attracted a foreign national willing to give the potentially intimidating event a try yesterday.

The southwestern Taiwan city of Chiayi has been chosen by the central government to seek membership to the World Health Organization's (WHO) global network of age-friendly cities, becoming the first city in Taiwan chosen to do so.

An outbreak of low-pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza is unfolding at a chicken farm in Sikou township in southern Taiwan's Chiayi County, a local animal disease control official said yesterday.

The 2011 Alishan Firefly Festival hailed “Stepping Out with Alishan Fireflies” is set to kick off on April 4 and last until June 30 at the Alishan Yuan Tan Natural Ecological Parks.

Legislator Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) of the Democratic Progressive Party said he did not collude with businesses on a sewage system construction bid during his term as the Chiayi County magistrate and declared his innocence in a statement yesterday.

The Control Yuan yesterday resolved to have the Cabinet-level Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) and the Chiayi County Government “correct” their dereliction of duty concerning a fire that broke out in October 2010 at the Nan Ya Plastics Corp.'s No.2 plant in the southern county of Chiayi.

A 20-year-old woman riding a scooter in Chiayi City yesterday got caught under a car after the vehicle behind her failed to stop at a red light and ran her over.