Taipei, Sept. 9 (CNA) Prosecutors said Saturday they have opened an investigation into Kee Tai Properties after one of the company’s construction sites in Taipei’s Zhongshan District caused a neighboring building to collapse on Thursday.

In a statement, the Taipei District Prosecutors Office said that the probe was prompted by a complaint filed by Taipei City Councilor Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) alleging Kee Tai violated construction and public safety laws.

Meanwhile, following a failure by Kee Tai Properties to meet with residents or local officials to discuss the structural damage, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said Saturday that the city government’s legal department would petition for provisional freezing of the company’s assets to protect the rights of affected households.

Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) told reporters that despite senior managers from Kee Tai properties agreeing to meet with city officials at noon on Saturday, the executives subsequently failed to show up.

Lee added that phone calls to the managers following the no-show also went unanswered.

According to Chiang, the buildings that suffered structural damage have now been stabilized, with residents from 25 severely affected households potentially being allowed to retrieve their belongings Saturday afternoon if conditions are confirmed safe by engineers.

Chiang said that the government would assist the affected households in any way that is required, including filing lawsuits and collecting related evidence, and that the government would cover residents’ legal fees.

However, Chiang said that based on a professional assessment, the structurally damaged buildings needed to be torn down.

Residents from the 25 most severely affected households are being moved to fully furnished social housing in Nangang District, Chiang added.

According to the city government, as of Saturday 9:30 a.m., a total of 201 households, with 442 people, had been evacuated since the incident occurred late Thursday.

Deputy Mayor Lee said that residents evacuated as a precautionary measure may be able to return home on Sunday or Monday once minor structural damage is repaired and power is restored to the affected buildings.

Government inspectors will check the buildings in the afternoon to see if the structure of the rooms and stairs are affected, Lee added.

Asked why the city government had not monitored Kee Tai’s construction site more closely despite local residents filing several reports of structural damage prior to Thursday’s collapse, Lee said officials would assess current regulations.

Lee added that the city government would explore involving a third party such as the Taipei Structural Engineers Association to assess future damage at construction sites.

In a social media post on Saturday, Taipei City Councilor Miao Po-ya (苗博雅) said she had questioned Chiang about the fitness of the city regulations when construction work caused a huge sinkhole to appear in Taipei’s Xinyi District in May, adding that no progress had been made on tightening related rules in the three months since.

Under current regulations, the onus is on residents to report structural damage to the city government, with the relevant construction company then assessing the situation themselves without third-party oversight, Miao said.

As the city government does not play a direct oversight role in this process, affected households are often left with little recourse if a company chooses to overlook structural damage and continue with construction work, Miao added.

Meanwhile, Lin Ssu-chuan (林四川), a professional geotechnical engineer, told CNA that legally required monitoring and warning systems had apparently failed to work as intended.

According to Lin, these monitoring warning systems should have alerted those in charge of the site to excessive pressure and distortion, allowing them to fix the problem in advance.

In addition, Lin said, the company may have misjudged the environment, the type of soil and the depth of a diaphragm wall.

Lin added that when companies are working on construction projects on soft ground, they should build up more piles so that the unstable structure can be improved.

However, the company did not work on the precautionary measures and did not have government officials inspect their work, Lin said.

The incident dated back to Thursday when police and firefighters received a call asking for assistance at 8:34 p.m. Responders subsequently discovered that at least five apartment buildings had tilted, prompting an evacuation, local authorities said.