Taiwan identifies missing tourist's remains

Taiwanese authorities yesterday identified a torso as that of a female mainland tourist missing since typhoon-triggered landslides wreaked havoc on a mountain highway on the island's northeast coast last week.

The announcement shattered relatives' hopes that 19 mainland tourists might have survived. 'Oh no, oh no, heaven,' the sister of Gong Yan screamed when Taiwanese officials announced the bad news during a briefing for relatives on the rescue progress in the search for 24 people unaccounted for since October 21. They included 19 tourists from Guangdong as well as a tour leader and a bus driver from Taiwan on the same coach, and a female tour leader from Beijing on another bus, plus two Taiwanese chicken farmers.

Her head buried in her arms, the weary sister, Gong Li, was later escorted back to her hotel room.

The news of the death of Gong Yan, 38, was confirmed by Lin Chi-hui, chief of the Ilan prosecutors office in northeastern Taiwan, bringing to 15 the number of people killed by the typhoon on the island.

'The DNA of the [torso] matched that of her sister Gong Li, proving it belongs to the victim Gong Yan,' Lin said.

Rescuers said the torso was found in the sea, eight nautical miles from the accident site, raising the possibility that the bus had plunged into the sea along with the tourists.

On Tuesday, Lin identified a hand as that of Tsai Ming-chih, the Taiwanese driver of another bus whose vehicle plunged into a ravine by the Suao-Hualien Highway when it was hit by landslides. Tsai and tour leader Tian Yuan, from Beijing, were reported to have helped the 19 tourists from Beijing crawl off the bus before it fell into the ravine, taking the pair with it. Lin said three other body parts found near the ravine all belonged to Tsai, but no sign of the Beijing tour leader had been found.