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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Up to NT$1.5 billion for Kaohsiung blast victims
Officials from the Greater Kaohsiung Prosecutors’ Office watch as engineers inspect a water culvert in the city in an attempt to ascertain where the series of gas explosions that occurred on July 31 and Aug. 1 originated. Photo: CNA
COMPENSATION: Families of those who died in the gas explosions are set to receive NT$12 million when a motion is ratified, the deputy mayor said
By Huang Chia-lin and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The Greater Kaohsiung municipality is allotting NT$1.2 billion to NT$1.5 billion （US$40 million to US$50 million） in compensation by right of subrogation for victims of the gas pipeline explosions on July 31 and Aug. 1 and is to start accepting applications after the municipal council ratifies the motion, Greater Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Lee Yung-te （李永得） said yesterday.
Under the motion, the families of those who died in the incident would receive NT$12 million, while those heavily injured would receive NT$8 million.
According to Lee, invoking subrogation allows for rapid compensation without the need to enter legal procedures.
However, the victims are not forced to accept this compensation, but can instead seek compensation from the governmental units responsible through legal means, Lee said.
Hsu Li-ming （許立明）, director of the municipal Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, said that the compensation amounts for the 30 people who died and 310 who were injured were comparatively easy to decide, but that the indemnities for damaged housing, cars, financial loss and business losses would take longer.
The auditing and confirmation process of these losses are more complicated, he said, adding that the municipality hopes to finish the compensation fee distribution within six months.
Greater Kaohsiung’s Legal Affairs Bureau Director Tseng Chien-tsung （曾慶宗） said the money would be “borrowed” from public donations, adding that the municipal government would allocate more funding should compensation funds received from future litigation fall short of the amount.
A total of NT$3.3 billion in donations have been raised since the accident.
If the funds exceed the amount “borrowed” by the municipal government, the authorities would reimburse the people with the difference, Tseng said.
However, Tseng said that victims of the explosions applying for the municipal government to represent them in subrogation must pay 1 percent of the litigation fees and a fraction of the implementation fees.
Should a victim ask for NT$1 million in compensation, they need to pay the municipal government NT$18,000 first for representation, Tseng said.
Meanwhile, the Greater Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ office yesterday excavated the culvert that was the alleged source of the explosions for further investigation.
The office found Styrofoam filling where the petrochemical pipes had first connected with the culvert and suspected the pipes existed before the culvert was built.
The culvert contained three pipes, one each owned by CPC Corp, Taiwan, China Petrochemical Development Corp and LCY Chemical Corp, the office said.
The office said it dug open the culvert mainly to understand which of the two, the culvert or the pipelines, had been laid first.
The order in which they were laid down may implicate whether civil servants overlooked their responsibility by failing to inspect the facility’s construction, the office said.
The pipeline and culvert have been buried for more than two decades and the office would be hiring experts to inspect the location due to geographical changes, the office said.（Additional reporting by CNA）
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
