A former computer engineering student was identified yesterday as the author of the Chernobyl virus that had caused hundreds of thousands of computer meltdowns around the world.

The Tatung Institute of Technology had punished Chen Ing-hau last April when the virus he wrote as a student began to cause damage in an inter-college data system, according to Lee Chee-chen, the institute's dean of student affairs.

The Chernobyl virus is known in Taiwan as the CIH, derived from Chen's initials.

Chen, who was a senior at the time, was given a demerit but not expelled.

The college did not mete out a more severe punishment because Chen had warned fellow students not to spread the virus, Lee said.

Chen did not come up with an anti-virus program, Lee added.

Lee said he was not sure how the virus ended up causing so much destruction a year later.

Chen graduated from the college last summer and now is serving Taiwan's two-year compulsory military service.

Newspaper have indicated Chen is serving on a military base somewhere in eastern Taiwan, but no exact location has been reported.

Officials of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation said they would seek permission to question Chen.

The unusually destructive virus--timed to strike on April 26, the 13th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster--tries to erase a computer's hard drive and write gibberish into its system settings to prevent the machine from being restarted.