Fatal Colour Two Years on From the Formosa Fun Coast Tragedy Bethany Green On the 27th of June 2015, clouds of coloured cornstarch powder used for party effects during a “colour play” party at Formosa Fun Coast, Taiwan, suddenly ignited and engulfed partygoers in flames. Around 1,000 young people were at the water park when the explosion occurred. Fifteen people died and over 470 were injured. It was the largest medical emergency in Taiwan since the 1999 earthquake. Danica Chan, 23, was among the partygoers that horrific evening. She was 18 years old at the time — a freshman at Yuan-ze University — and was celebrating the end of their first semester together with several of her high school friends. “We arrived at the water park around 4pm. It was a scorching hot day,” Danica said. “The DJ was playing music on a stage in an empty swimming pool, people were dancing and coloured powder was being spread out from the stage into the crowd. Everything seemed perfect.” Danica and her friends had squeezed their way to the front of the crowd, about five meters away from the DJ. “Everyone was having a great time,” she said. “Powder was being tossed around in large quantities — we were ankle deep in the stuff. So many colours; blue, pink, red, yellow. There was so much of it in the air that I felt that I couldn’t breathe properly.” Suddenly, they heard a loud sound coming from the stage, and a sudden rush of bright orange and red light. “At first, we thought it was a stage effect. Then the screaming started. I will never forget that sound. By the time I realised it wasn’t a part of the show, it was too late — my whole body was on fire.” After a few moments, it was as if Danica had suddenly come to her senses again, “almost like I had ‘woken up,’” she said. “The first thing I noticed was the smell; it smelt like a BBQ. Then I realised I had been burnt by the fire. I raised my arms and saw that the skin had turned dark and was peeling off in large flaps.”
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Bethany Green is a foriegn correspondent at Togatus and a current New Colombo Plan scholarship holder. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views of the Australian Government. Togatus would like to thank Radio Taiwan International for assistance in producing this story.
