HUALIEN,
The powerful quake struck during the morning rush hour a day earlier, sending schoolchildren rushing outdoors and families fleeing their apartments through the windows. The ground floors of some buildings collapsed, leaving them leaning at precarious angles. Though the island is regularly rattled by earthquakes and generally well prepared, authorities did not send out the usual alerts because they were expecting a smaller temblor.
Some 200 residents of Hualien County near the epicenter were staying in temporary shelters, and the main road linking the county to the capital,
Nearly 1,100 people were injured in the quake. Of the 10 dead, at least four were killed inside
Hundreds of people were stranded when rocks and mud blocked the roads leading to their hotel, campground or work site — though most were safe while they awaited rescue. It wasn’t clear Thursday if any people were still trapped in buildings.
“We almost got covered up,” Liu said. “No communication could be made (to the outside world).” Liu and his colleague were rescued Thursday afternoon and received a quick medical checkup outside the park.
About 60 workers who had been unable to leave a quarry because of damaged roads were also freed, authorities said. Six workers from another quarry were airlifted out.
Some 700 people remain cut off, the vast majority of them employees and guests at a hotel in the national park. Authorities said they were safe and had food and water, and that work to repair the roads to the hotel was nearly finished. Another 10 workers from the same hotel were stranded elsewhere in the park, after most of the others in the group were rescued or managed to walk out.
Authorities said they were unable to contact about 15 people, and their condition was not known. Numbers have fluctuated frequently as authorities have learned of more people in trouble and rescued others.
In the city of Hualien on Thursday, workers used an excavator to stabilize the base of a damaged building, as chickens pecked among potted plants on the flat roof slanting at a severe angle.
Mayor
“We ran out of the apartment and waited for four to five hours before we went up again to grab some important stuff such as our wallet. And then we’re staying here ever since to assess the situation,” he said.
Others also said they didn’t dare to go home because the walls of their apartments were cracked or they lived on higher floors. Taiwanese Premier
The earthquake was the strongest to hit
Hualien was last struck by a deadly quake in 2018 which killed 17 people and brought down a historic hotel. Taiwan’s worst recent earthquake struck on
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This story has been corrected to say that Huang was in “her” apartment, not “his."
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Leung reported from
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