An accident at TSMC’s Kaohsiung plant resulted in 4 deaths; some construction has been suspended.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC.US) has suspended part of its construction work at its Kaohsiung facility after an accident resulted in the deaths of four workers. In a statement, TSMC said the incident occurred on Tuesday while workers were performing steel structure construction at the plant. According to local media reports, the workers fell from a height while welding steel beams. TSMC stated that it has halted construction work at the Kaohsiung facility and stopped similar steel structure operations at all of its sites across Taiwan, while also cooperating with the investigation into the cause of the accident. This is the most serious accident to have occurred at TSMC’s Kaohsiung facility since construction began. The fatal incident comes as TSMC is striving to expand capacity to meet the growing demand for advanced chips in the field of artificial intelligence.