Qualla: 1991 Miaoli Train Collision

1991 Miaoli Train Collision: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On a Friday afternoon in November 1991, passengers on two of Taiwan's most heavily used express routes were going about their journeys — commuters, students, families traveling home for the weekend. At around four o'clock, near Zaoqiao Station in Miaoli County, the Tze-Chiang 1006 and the Chu-Kuang 1 trains collided. Thirty people were killed. One hundred and twelve were injured. The crash became the deadliest railway accident in Taiwan since 1948, a record that would stand for nearly three decades.

1991 Miaoli Train Collision: The Day It Happened

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The collision occurred at approximately 16:00 on 15 November 1991. The Chu-Kuang 1, a slower express service, was in the process of turning onto a secondary line when the Tze-Chiang 1006 — a faster EMU100 series express — lost control and struck it. Three carriages of the Chu-Kua...

1991 Miaoli Train Collision: The People on Board

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Thirty people did not survive. One hundred and twelve others were taken from the wreckage with injuries. The source records do not list the victims by name, but the afternoon timing and the routes involved — connecting western Taiwan's cities with Miaoli and points north — sugges...

1991 Miaoli Train Collision: The Investigation and Its Aftermath

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Taiwan Railway's investigation examined signal equipment, track conversion systems, and the possibility of human error. The railroad chief at the time, Chen Shifang, who had taken office only four months earlier, publicly stated early on that the signal systems were not at fault ...

1991 Miaoli Train Collision: A Benchmark of Loss

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For nearly thirty years, the 1991 Miaoli collision stood as Taiwan's worst railway disaster since the postwar era. That changed in April 2021, when 49 people died after a train derailed in Hualien — a tragedy that brought the 1991 disaster back into public memory as a point of co...

1991 Miaoli Train Collision: What Remains

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Zaoqiao Station still stands in Miaoli County, a stop on the main western line of the Taiwan Railway. Trains pass through it every day, carrying the same kinds of travelers as in 1991. There is no permanent memorial at the site to the thirty people who died there. The collision i...