At least seven people were spotted at a construction site above the Taiwanese rail line in the minutes before last Friday’s deadly train crash, leading authorities to search for more individuals connected to the case.

The train crash, Taiwan’s deadliest in decades, killed 50 people and injured more than 200. Authorities earlier arrested Lee Yi-hsiang, the 49-year-old owner of an improperly parked truck that slid down a slope from a construction site and blocked the tracks, causing the accident.

Lee earlier told police he was at the construction site alone, but fresh accounts from eyewitnesses indicated that Lee was with six other members of a construction crew, including someone who appeared to be the site’s safety officer. The group looked on in horror as the train crashed but offered no help, an eyewitness told Apple Daily Taiwan on Sunday.

Lee fled the scene driving a truck, while the apparent safety officer changed his outfit and blended into the crowd of crash survivors, the eyewitness said. The safety officer initially wore blue clothing and was seen on the slope with a jacket tied around his waist. The same man was later spotted next to the crashed train wearing his jacket, before disappearing from the scene.

Another person took a photo of the scene at 9:21 a.m. on Friday – seven minutes before the crash – showing the truck still parked at the construction site, according to the Taiwanese news outlet TVBS. It is unclear how the truck got into the way of the train.

The local district prosecutors office said they were aware of at least two people present at the scene before the crash, and urged the public to provide information about them.

Lee remained in police custody after the Hualian high court on Sunday overturned a decision to grant him bail. He previously said he “deeply regretted” the tragedy and apologized to the public.

Transport Minister Lin Chia-lung said on Sunday that he will resign from his position once the search and rescue efforts are complete.

“We should accept society’s criticism that our pace of reform was not quick enough,” he wrote on Facebook. “Resigning is the most basic way of accepting responsibility. The remaining days of my term do not reflect my unwillingness to leave, but my desire to deal with the incident’s aftermath.”

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