HUALIEN.– Rescuers were searching Thursday for dozens of people still missing the day after the strongest earthquake in Taiwan in a quarter of a century, which left ten dead and dozens of people stranded in remote areas.
In the city of Hualien, near the epicenter on the island’s east coast, workers used an excavator to stabilize the base of a damaged building with construction material while some officials took samples from the facade of the block, called Uranus, and some Chickens pecked among the potted plants on the sloping roof.
Mayor Hsu Chen-wei previously said 48 residential buildings were affected. Some of the buildings were left leaning at steep angles after their first floors collapsed.
Although some residents of Hualien were still in tents, much of the island’s daily life was returning to normal. Several train routes to Hualien have resumed and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., one of the world’s largest computer processor makers, has resumed most of its operations, according to the Central News Agency.
Taiwan experiences frequent earthquakes and its population is well prepared for them. It also has strict building regulations to ensure that buildings resist earthquakes.
Hendri Sutrisno, a 30-year-old professor at Dong Hwa University in Hualien, spent Wednesday night in a tent with his family for fear of aftershocks.
“We ran out of the apartment and waited four or five hours before going upstairs again to grab some important things, like our wallet. And since then we stayed here to evaluate the situation,” she said.
Others said they did not dare to return home because the walls of their apartments have cracks and they lived on high floors. Taiwanese Prime Minister Chen Chien-jen visited some evacuees in the morning at a temporary shelter
More than 1,070 people were injured in the Wednesday morning earthquake. Of the ten who died, at least four lost their lives inside Taroko National Park, a tourist attraction famous for its views of canyons and cliffs in Hualien county, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the capital Taipei. One person was found dead in the Uranus building and another in the Ho Ren quarry. Authorities recovered another body on a trail Thursday afternoon.
About 700 people remained trapped or unaccounted for Thursday, including about 600 trapped in a hotel called Silks Place Taroko, the National Fire Agency said. Hotel employees and guests were safe and had food and water, and efforts to repair roads to the site were near completion, according to authorities.
Other trapped people, such as about twenty tourists and six university students, were also safe, they added.
Authorities announced that about 60 people who had been stranded in a quarry due to closed and damaged roads had been freed. Everyone left the mountain around noon, according to the Central News Agency. Six employees from another quarry were evacuated by air.
About 40 people, mostly hotel employees, who were in the national park had not yet been contacted.
For several hours after the quake, television broadcast images of neighbors and rescuers helping people out of the windows of damaged buildings, where the shaking jammed the doors. It was unclear Thursday morning whether more people were trapped inside damaged buildings.
Taiwan put the magnitude of the earthquake at 7.2, while the United States Geological Survey put it at 7.4. The Central Meteorological Administration has recorded more than 300 aftershocks from Wednesday morning to Thursday.
Source: With information from AP
