TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The death toll from a fire at a PX Mart processing center under construction in Taichung on Thursday has risen to nine, while eight were injured.
At 1:24 p.m., the Taichung City Fire Department received a report of a blaze at a fresh food processing plant run by PX Mart subsidiary Sunmake Enterprise Co. on Shatian Road, in Taichung's Dadu District. The fire department dispatched 40 vehicles and 107 firefighters, per PTS News.
The fire department said the building was under construction with four above-ground floors and one basement level. Several workers were trapped on different floors from the fire.
At 2:00 p.m., firefighters transported a 24-year-old Vietnamese man surnamed Nguyen, who jumped from the third floor when the fire began, to Kuang Tien General Hospital for treatment via ambulance. However, doctors were unable to resuscitate him and he was pronounced dead at the hospital at 3:18 p.m., per TVBS.
Of the estimated 30 construction workers inside the building when the fire broke out, 14 were rescued from the top floor and five from the third floor. Firefighters then estimated five to eight workers remained missing.
At 3:44 p.m., search and rescue personnel found two workers trapped on the fourth floor: a 47-year-old man surnamed Tsai (蔡) and a 48-year-old woman surnamed Chen (陳) who were pronounced dead after being sent to the hospital.
At 6:13 p.m., another deceased individual, a male foreign worker, was discovered on the fourth floor.
The last five victims were found on the third floor at around 7 p.m., per CNA. The fire department said they had been trapped in a partitioned mezzanine on the third floor, which likely hindered their escape.
The fire department's preliminary assessment indicates that during welding work on the third floor, sparks fell through gaps in the stairwell to the basement, where they came into contact with the paint mixture, triggering the fire, per PTS News.
The Taichung City Government will order a work stoppage per the Building Act and Occupational Safety and Health Act, which require improvements within a specified timeframe and impose penalties. Additional penalties will be imposed for violations of the Air Pollution Control Act.
The exact cause of the fire remains under investigation.