KUALA LUMPUR – Taiwanese rescuers continue their search for 18 people who remain missing after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck the island’s mountainous and scenic east coast.
Dozens of aftershocks continued to rattle the disaster zone, but trapped people were gradually being brought to safety, Reuters reported.
Last Wednesday’s earthquake in Taiwan’s sparsely populated eastern county of Hualien killed 10 people, leaving hundreds of people stranded in a national park as boulders barreled down mountains, cutting off roads.
Taiwan’s Fire Department put the number of people still missing at 18, including four foreigners previously listed as being Indian, Canadian, and Australian whose location it said was unknown.
Another six people are missing on a hiking trail, and a 45-person rescue team is trying to reach them, it added.
Rescuers have confirmed that approximately 400 people who were cut off at a luxury hotel in Taroko Gorge National Park are safe, and they have been helicoptering in supplies and evacuating the injured.
A group of 50 workers who were on their way to the hotel and had been trapped on the roads are now mostly safe.
“I am lucky to have survived this disaster. We were terrified, especially when the earthquake first happened; we thought it was all over, all over, all over, because it was an earthquake, right?” said David Chen, 63, a security manager at the hotel, after he was rescued yesterday.
“As we were leaving, rocks were still falling. We had to navigate through the gaps between the falling rocks with the search-and-rescue team upfront,” he added.
Chen’s 85-year-old mother expressed her relief with tears streaming down her face as they were reunited. For some time, the family did not know if Chen had survived the disaster.
“I was happy to see him. I was happy when he returned. I didn’t sleep at all last night and couldn’t eat anything,” his mother, Chen Lan-chih, said.
Around 50 aftershocks rattled Hualien overnight, with some felt in the capital Taipei.
Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is prone to earthquakes.
More than 100 people were killed in a quake in southern Taiwan in 2016, while a 7.3-magnitude quake killed more than 2,000 people in 1999. – April 5, 2024