Protesters call for safety work on Taiwan's 'road of death'

About 10,000 residents rallied in front of the Presidential Office yesterday, demanding that the Taiwanese government improve a dangerous mountain highway on the northeast coast.

Twenty-three people - including a tour leader from Beijing and 19 tourists from Guangdong, who boarded two tour buses - have been unaccounted for since October 21 after their buses tumbled off a cliff amid landslides triggered by Typhoon Megi.

Except for a tourist identified as Gong Yan, whose torso was recovered from the sea 8.5 nautical miles from the accident site, Taiwanese rescuers have yet to find any missing people.

'A safe road home,' 'No more excuses,' and 'Don't treat people in Hualien like animals,' shouted the residents of the eastern county of Hualien, who said their lives had been threatened because of numerous accidents on the Suao-Hualien Highway.

Open for traffic in 1932, the 103-kilometre highway, which links Hualien and Suao town in Ilan county, is the only highway residents in Hualien can use to go from eastern Taiwan to Taipei. With a portion built beside steep cliffs high above the ocean, it is a dangerous, yet scenic, drive. But landslides have occurred frequently due to long-time wind erosion to the mountain. Between 1998 and 2008, 1,046 people were killed and 13,488 injured due to landslides and vehicle accidents on the highway, also dubbed the 'road of death'.

'Why is it so difficult to build a safe road for Hualien people?' asked Hualien magistrate Fu Kun-chi, who led the rally outside the Presidential Office. It took the residents nearly 15 hours to travel from Hualien to Taipei by way of the eastern county of Taitung and the southern county of Pingtung.

'So you know how important the Suao-Hualien Highway is to Hualien people,' Fu said. Some residents blamed the government's reluctance to improve the highway for having to travel to Taipei the long way round. A flight of the same duration would put Taiwanese residents in New York.