AFP – Rescuers in Taiwan worked yesterday to reach scores of people trapped in highway tunnels as engineers began a massive clear-up operation a day after the island’s biggest earthquake in a quarter of a century.
Ten people were killed and more than 1,000 injured in Wednesday’s magnitude-7.4 quake, but strict building regulations and widespread public disaster awareness appear to have staved off a major catastrophe on the island.
Dozens of residents of the worst-hit city, Hualien, spent a night outdoors rather than in apartments still being shaken by aftershocks, and a huge engineering operation was underway to fix damaged roads and prop up tilting buildings.
Dramatic video released yesterday by the island’s Central Emergency Operation Centre showed a helicopter flying two sorties to pluck up six miners trapped in a gypsum quarry in Hualien county, near the epicentre of the quake.
Rescuers knew the whereabouts of dozens more people trapped in a network of strongly built tunnels in the county, a feature of the roads that cut through the scenic mountains and cliffs leading to Hualien City from the north and west.
“I also hope that we can use today’s time to find all people who are stranded and unaccounted for and help them settle down,” Premier Chen Chien-jen said after a briefing at an emergency operation centre in Hualien.
The island has been shaken by over 300 strong aftershocks since the first quake, and the government warned people to be wary of landslides or rockfalls if they ventured to the countryside for Qingming, a two-day public holiday that began yesterday.
Families traditionally visit the tombs of their ancestors on the holiday to clean the gravesites and burn offerings.
According to authorities, 10 people had been killed – with the latest casualty found on a hiking trail yesterday – and 1,067 injured in the quake.
Authorities were in contact with over 600 people trapped in tunnels or cut-off areas, but had lost touch with another 38 – although they were believed to be safe.
At around 4pm, a highway was cleared. A small group stranded for nearly 30 hours emerged to be greeted by rescue workers handing them water and ushering some to the first aid tent.
“It’s good to be alive!” said David Chen, who works at the luxury Silks Place Taroko hotel located deeper in the mountains.
In Hualien, a glass-fronted building named Uranas – now tilting at a 45-degree angle after half of its first floor pancaked – has become something of a symbol of the quake.
“When the earthquake happened, we immediately evacuated the guests… and urged them to leave,” Wang Zhong-chang, 55, the proprietor of the nearby Hualien Hero hotel, told AFP.
Over 100 people chose to sleep outdoors in tents at a shelter set up in an elementary school Wednesday night as the aftershocks continued.
