Aftershocks force Taiwan residents to camp out; 660 still trapped in hotels
HUALIEN, Taiwan—A helicopter plucked to safety on Thursday six people stranded in a mining area after Taiwan’s worst earthquake in 25 years, while hundreds of aftershocks rocking the eastern region near its epicenter drove scores more to seek shelter outdoors.
The death toll from Wednesday’s magnitude 7.2 quake rose to 10, with the tally of injured at 1,067, authorities said, while most of the roughly 50 hotel workers marooned on a highway as they headed to a resort in a national park were located.
But 660 people were still trapped, most of them in hotels in the park, after the road was cut off, the fire department said, as the discovery of a body on a hiking trail near the entrance to a gorge took the total deaths to 10.
A helicopter ferried to safety six miners trapped on a cliff in a dramatic rescue after the quake cut off the roads into Hualien’s soaring mountains, in footage shown by the department.
“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 center in Hualien.
The agriculture ministry urged people to keep away from the mountains because of the risk of falling rocks and the formation of “barrier lakes” as water pools behind unstable debris.
Tomb-sweeping festival
Thursday was the start of a long-weekend holiday for the tomb-sweeping festival, when families traditionally return home to attend to ancestral graves, though others will also visit tourist attractions.
People in largely rural and sparsely populated Hualien county were readying to go to work and school when the earthquake struck offshore on Wednesday.
Buildings also shuddered violently in Taipei, but the capital suffered minimal damage and disruption.
All those trapped in buildings in the worst-hit city of Hualien have been rescued, but many residents unnerved by more than 300 aftershocks spent the night outdoors.
“The aftershocks were terrifying,” said Yu, a 52-year-old woman, who gave only her family name. “It’s nonstop. I do not dare to sleep in the house.”
Sleeping in tents
Too scared to return to her apartment, which she described as being in a “mess,” she slept in a tent on a sports ground being used for temporary shelter.
Dozens of residents queued outside one badly damaged 10-story building, waiting to go in and retrieve belongings.
Clad in helmets and accompanied by government personnel, each was given 10 minutes to collect valuables in huge garbage bags, though some saved time by throwing items out of windows into the street below.
“This building is no longer livable,” said Tian Liang-si, who lived on the fifth floor, as she scrambled to gather her laptop, family photographs and other crucial items.
She recalled the moment the quake struck, sending the building lurching and furniture sliding, while she rushed to save the four puppies she keeps as pets.
“I’m a Hualien native,” she told Reuters. “I’m not supposed to fear earthquakes. But this is an earthquake that frightened us.” —REUTERS
