The Taroko Express Train No. 408 of the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) departed from Shulin Station and was bound for Taitung Station on April 2, 2021. There were 498 persons on board, including 2 drivers, a trainmaster, a cleaner, and 494 passengers. Around 0928 am, the train drove out the south end of the Heren Tunnel between the Heren station and the Chongde station, then collided with a truck which fell off the working access path along hillside to stop on East Main Line track at K51+450.1 about more than a minute ago. This occurrence caused that all eight train carriages derailed, of which 6 carriages (car 3 to car 8) stuck in the Qingshui tunnel, the left side of car 8 was cut off , car 7 was detached from car 6, and of which 3 carriages (car 4 to car 6) were extruded and deformed. There were 49 fatalities (2 drivers and 47 passengers) and 213 injuries.

After the occurrence, a TTSB’s investigation task force was dispatched to scene immediately for investigation according to the provisions of the Transportation Occurrences Investigation Act and carried out on-site measurement, survey, wreckage inspection, personnel interview, document collection, recorder decoding and time synchronization, etc. We also applied LiDAR and Drone to conduct scene and wreckage digital model, used Eye-Tracker to simulate the driver’s light adaptation effect, carried out truck braking test, collected the injury pattern and construction safety management information for survival factors and organizational issue analysis in future.

The TTSB held two kickoff meetings and invited the Public Construction Commission of Executive Yuan, the Construction and Planning Agency of the Ministry of the Interior, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Railway Bureau, the Taiwan Railways Administration, the Directorate General of Highways, the United Geotech Ltd., the C.Y.L Engineering Consulting Ltd., the Dong Xin Construction Ltd. and the Hotai Motor Ltd. to participate in the investigation on April 7 and May 12, 2021,respectively. The contents of the factual report were confirmed in meeting by all the relevant agencies/companies on August 11, 2021 and was approved by TTSB’s Board Meeting on August 13, 2021.

The complete investigation report containing with factual information, analysis, findings and recommendations is expected to be published after approval of the Board Meeting on April 2022. Through the complete investigation and analysis process, we would like to provide recommendations and prevent the recurrence of a similar occurrence.

The full text of this factual data report can be downloaded from the TTSB website：https://www.ttsb.gov.tw

Vivi Yang, Executive Officer
Tel: +886-2-7727-6217
E-mail:viviy2314@ttsb.gov.tw