Four construction workers are dead after a steel structure gave way during erection at TSMC’s Fab 22 construction site in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has suspended similar steel structure work at all of its construction sites across Taiwan while the cause is investigated.
The Kaohsiung Fire Department got the call at 4:53 p.m. on Oct. 20, according to the Taipei Times. Bolts on a connecting plate of an outer steel structure on the third floor snapped during a hoisting and installation operation, and four workers fell with heavy steel components. Three were pronounced dead that night. The fourth died the next morning in intensive care.
What inspectors are looking at in the Fab 22 collapse
The bolt failure is a preliminary finding. The Southern Taiwan Science Park Bureau, which oversees the park in Nanzih District, sent labor inspectors to establish the cause and assign liability, and it stopped steel hoisting on the project. Tom’s Hardware reported that any penalties will be set under Taiwan’s Occupational Safety and Health Act once the bureau finishes.
The workers were employed by a domestic contractor that hasn’t been publicly named. TSMC said in an emailed statement reported by Reuters that it and the contractor immediately suspended related work at the site, and that it’s working with authorities to make sure remedial steps are taken. Neither TSMC nor the bureau has given a restart date.
The site is Phase 4 of Fab 22, part of a 2-nanometer complex. Kaohsiung’s deputy mayor said Phase 4 construction began in August 2025, with operations expected in the fourth quarter of 2027.
A fab construction safety record under pressure
This wasn’t the first death on a TSMC job. Local reports cited by Tom’s Hardware count at least half a dozen earlier fatal accidents at TSMC construction sites in Taiwan since September 2024, each killing one worker. The same reporting says the company’s fab construction pace jumped from about four new fabs a year between 2017 and 2024 to nine a year in 2025 and 2026.
TSMC’s own executives have tied the two together. Senior vice president Cliff Hou told Business Today that more workers and overlapping construction raise the risk and demand closer supervision. TSMC says it’s added contractor safety records to its selection criteria and plans a construction safety association with its building partners.
The U.S. side has a record too. Arizona’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health fined TSMC $16,131 after a worker died in May 2024 at its Phoenix-area fab site, when an over-pressurized acid container exploded, Data Center Dynamics reported at the time. That penalty was a general duty citation.
Why a connection failure matters to every steel erector
A snapped bolt at a connection plate during hoisting points at the erection sequence, not the finished frame: how many bolts were in the connection before the load came on, whether they were the right grade and tension, and who checked. Those are questions any steel erector and its GC answer every day on fab, data center and plant jobs, where schedules push crews to overlap trades on upper floors.
Fab construction is booming in the U.S. as well, from GlobalFoundries’ planned Malta fabs to TSMC’s own Arizona campus. Closer to home, a crane operator died on the Brent Spence Bridge job the weekend before. The Kaohsiung findings, if the bureau publishes them, will be worth reading line by line before the next steel package goes up.