Giant Duck Explodes In Taiwan Hours Before New Year [Video]

Taiwan experienced an explosion in celebrations leading up to the New Year, but there were no wild parties. Instead, the mayhem occurred when a giant inflatable duck exploded among a crowd in Taiwan, just hours before the changing of the year.

The giant duck was supposed to float above the crowd in the town of Keelung to help usher in 2014. The 59 foot tall duck was the master work of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman. After it exploded, the only thing left of the giant duck was a circular piece of yellow rubber.

According to NineMSN.com, investigators are leaning towards the explanation that eagles attacked the giant rubber ducky, and their claws punctured a hole in it. The giant rubber ducky was the pride of the town and thousands had turned out to see it.

The festivity’s organizer Huang King-tai was forced to issue a public apology for the exploding duck.

Jing-tai said in an interview with WPXI.com:

“We want to apologize to the fans of the yellow rubber duck…. the weather is fine today and we haven’t found the cause of the problem. We will carefully examine the duck to determine the cause”.

What makes this tragedy newsworthy is this is not the first giant rubber duck tragedy to strike Taiwan. Just last month, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake forced a power outage. A giant rubber duck that had been in display in the towns square deflated when the pump keeping it inflated stopped working, according to the Telegraph.

Also, this past September in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, a giant rubber duck was deflated and brought into a shelter in order to keep it safe from Typhoon Usagi. The storm wound up causing serious damage to the island.

Do you think the Taiwanese should stop trying to put giant rubber ducks on display at their events?