A Taipei court handed prison terms to five people over a 2023 construction accident that sank and tilted homes — bad news for the developer, and a rare win for residents who were forced out.

• The site supervisor for the Kee Tai Properties project got nearly five years in prison.
• Four others — a project manager, a company employee, the supervising architect, and a technician — got shorter terms, one suspended.
• Digging at the site in September 2023 caused a neighboring building to sink and others nearby to tilt, forcing hundreds of people out of their homes.
• Warnings from the site's monitoring system were ignored, and monitoring data was altered to head off damage claims from neighbors.
• Inspection and supervision duties were not carried out, so the project's safety checks did nothing.

Outlook: Expect appeals from the defendants and tighter scrutiny of excavation work near existing buildings in Taipei.