Taichung District Prosecutors Office investigated the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store explosion accident. Yesterday (13th) evening, Prosecutor Yi-Ju HSIEH led a forensic doctor to Chongde Funeral Parlor to conduct an autopsy on the deceased person surnamed CHEN (male, employee of the Department Store), which was completed at around 8:40 p.m. Today (14th), Prosecutor Yu-Wen HUANG followed up with autopsies on three other decedents, namely, surnamed LIN (female, employee of the Department Store), DENG (male, resident of Macau), and LU (female, resident of Macau). The autopsies were completed at around 3:50 p.m. The autopsy results showed that the four victims died of multiple organ failure resulting from head and chest trauma, blunt chest and abdominal trauma. Staff members of Association for Victims Support, Taichung Branch accompanied and cared for the victims’ family members throughout the entire process at Chongde Funeral Parlor. They set up a booth and provided "warm care packages" for the purpose of informing the family members of their rights and interests in addition to expressing their warm care.

The criminal investigation was continuously handled by the special task force consisting of Head Prosecutor Pao-Lin CHENG, Prosecutor Cheng-Yen LEE, the prosecutor investigator of the Serious Case Support Center, and the supporting police force of the Special Police Fourth Headquarters. Yesterday (13^th), the Sixth Precinct of Taichung City Government Police Department (hereinafter called “Sixth Precinct”) notified 16 witnesses involved in the case including department store employees, gas company representatives, and renovation/demolition company representatives to come forward to give explanations and descriptions in details, and then the witnesses came to the Office in the evening for overnight re-interrogations by 9 groups of prosecutors. The re-interrogations were completed at around 2:50 a.m. today (14^th), and all 16 witnesses were informed to return.

Head Prosecutor Pao-Lin CHENG led the special task force members to visit the Sixth Precinct at around 2:30 p.m. today to hold a special task force meeting with the investigation team, the Fire Investigation Section of Taichung City Government Fire Department and other relevant units. The meeting focused on continuing to clarify the cause of the explosion and understanding the progress of investigation. After the meeting, they immediately went to the gas explosion site again for a second on-site inspection.

The special task force will investigate and carefully clarify as soon as possible whether the people related to the accident are involved in criminal liability such as negligent homicide, negligent injury and public danger.