(The following appeared at CNN.com on April 28, 2011.)
TAIWAN — Termites are responsible for a train crash in Taiwan that killed five Chinese tourists and injured more than 100 others, government officials said in a report on the state-run Taiwan Today website.
According to the report, the accident happened Wednesday, when a 40-foot-long branch weighing one ton fell from a 90-foot-tall Mori oak tree less than 10 yards from the track of the narrow-gauge Alishan Forest Railway. It struck a train and derailed four cars.
Investigators dispatched by the Forestry Bureau of the Council of Agriculture determined that termites had eaten away the interior of the large branch, and with further stress on the tree from recent dry weather, it broke and fell on the train, the report said.
Full story: www.cnn.com