A public memorial ceremony for the victims of a deadly building fire in Kaohsiung took place on Friday at the city’s municipal funeral home.
President Tsai Ing-wen was among those in attendance, underscoring both the scale of the tragedy and the seriousness of the government’s efforts to prevent a similar fire from breaking out in the future.
It was a fire that shocked Taiwan. On October 14, just over a week ago, a blaze ripped through a 13-story building in the southern city of Kaohsiung, killing 46.
Only one fire in Taiwan’s entire history, a 1995 blaze at a karaoke club in Taichung, has had a higher death toll.
Many of the building’s residents were senior citizens with disabilities or dementia. Compounding the difficulty of rescuing trapped residents was the building’s age—40 years old—and the fact that stairwells were piled with trash and other objects.
It hasn’t taken long for officials to pledge tightening building codes and stepping up inspections of older buildings: the fact is that there are many similar buildings of dubious safety all across Taiwan. President Tsai Ing-wen herself has since said that Taiwan’s building management codes are too lax. An amendment to the law covering buildings built before 1995 is already in the works.
But all this does nothing to ease the pain of victims’ relatives. On Friday, as flags across Taiwan flew at half mast, President Tsai traveled to Kaohsiung to attend a public memorial ceremony for victims. Also present was Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai.
The only good news is that survivors and victims’ relatives may not have long to wait to get justice. The day after the blaze, investigators were already questioning a couple over suspicions of negligent homicide in the case. One of them, a woman surnamed Huang, has been detained, accused of failing to extinguish a burning incense coil before leaving the building on the night of the fire. Her boyfriend has been released on bail.