BEIJING
Each partygoer paid NT$1,500 ($49) to enter. The event was held in a drained swimming pool. According to reports, many of the participants came dressed for the 35-degree temperature in beach attire.
On offer was a day of music and dance named "Color Play Asia," inspired by similar festivals that occur in the larger Asia region. Video on the Taiwanese company's Facebook page shows jets of colored powder being fired into dancing, happy crowds.
As the guests entered the Formosa Fun Coast Water Park venue - most of them young people in their 20s - they were each given three packets of colored powder, according to Hong Kong based newspaper the Apple Daily.
Taiwan's Central News Agency reported Hou Yu-ih, the deputy mayor of New Taipei, as saying Monday that as much as three tons of fine corn dust had been prepared for use during the event - held in the city for the second consecutive year.
Some of those at the party were Chinese, some from Hong Kong, others from the United States, Singapore, Japan, and Macau, but most were young Taiwanese.
Around 8.30 p.m. (1330GMT) on Saturday evening the dust - much of which had accumulated almost ankle deep in front of a performance stage - exploded, Hou said.
Video reported to have been taken at the event shows the venue turning into an inferno, jets of powder igniting, sending a wave of flame over the screaming partygoers.
It "was like hell," one man told reporters at the scene.
"Everyone was screaming and there was blood everywhere. The waterway [used for inflatable boat rides] was filled with blood because everyone was dipping themselves in it," trying to soothe their burns.
As of Monday morning, 439 of the around 4,000 people who bought tickets remained hospitalized, 211 of them in intensive care, reported CNA.
Some of them suffered burns to throats and lungs having breathed in some of the dust.
A 20-year-old woman reported to have sustained second-degree burns over 90 percent of her body died Monday morning after being taken off a ventilator.
Her younger brother - who also suffered similar burns - remains in a serious condition.
The mother of a 17-year-old girl told CNA that her severely burned daughter was lying on an inflatable boat in the park when she found her, over an hour after the explosion.
"All her skin was gone. Her hands were shaking ... and she kept calling for me," she told local reporters.
With so many people injured, many had to wait for hours for ambulances, some placed in inflatable beach lifesavers in an effort to soothe the pain.
The father of one teenager told CNA that his daughter remained in intensive care after suffering third-degree burns over 80 percent of her body.
"Her whole body is 'rotten' and she is disfigured. She just turned 18," he said.
He told CNA that he had tried to phone his daughter after seeing her name on the list of injured.
When she didn't answer "I knew it must be her."
A preliminary investigation has found that in addition to the powder thrown by the partygoers, staff also used carbon dioxide canisters to blow the dust toward the crowd.
CNA quoted the city's deputy mayor as saying that as more and more dust filled the air close to the stage, it was probably ignited by a lit cigarette, lighting, sound equipment or other equipment.
Although smoking was banned at the event, CNA reported that eyewitnesses have said that one staff member was smoking onstage.
