16 WCA workers washed away in torrential river

The river, spanned by the Chiwei bridge, was swollen by heavy downpours, triggering a mudslide that surged into a temporary dorm where 30 WRA workers were staying overnight.

Only 14 of them were rescued, police investigators reported. The accident occurred shortly after 5 a.m.

Helicopters hovered above the river in search of the missing workers, but as of press time, none of them were found.

The bridge snapped into two pieces, cutting off Chishan from the rest of Kaohsiung County.

Another highway bridge at Chichi in central Taiwan collapsed, plunging a car into the river. A vegetable grower and his daughter were trapped in the car, Chichi police said.

“They are missing,” a police sergeant said. “We are trying to locate them.”

Two cars fell and washed into the sea shortly after dawn, when the Shuanyuan Bridge, linking the counties of Pingtung and Kaohsiung along the coast, also collapsed.

The Shuanyuan Bridge was only rebuilt last year. Flash floods washed away the middle section of the bridge, sending the two cars into the river below.

Police did not know how many people were inside either of the two cars, both of which were carried by torrents into the sea.

In the county of Chiayi, a bridge named after Wu Feng also collapsed, but no casualties were reported. Wu Feng is a legendary interpreter believed to have ended the head-hunting customs of the Tsou in Mount Ali by getting himself killed.

Chihpen, a hotspring resort in Taitung County, was hit hardest by flash floods. Its landmark tourist hotel, Chin-shuai, teetered and ultimately collapsed into the river flowing past Chihpen.

All guests had been evacuated before the building crashed into the river shortly before noon.

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