HUALIEN, Taiwan – A helicopter plucked to safety on April 4 six people stranded in a mining area to safety after Taiwan’s worst earthquake in 25 years, while hundreds of aftershocks rocking the eastern region near its epicentre drove scores more to seek shelter outdoors.
The death toll from April 3’s 7.4-magnitude 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 dead body on a hiking trail near the entrance to a gorge took the total deaths to ten.
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.
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.
April 4 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 April 3.
Buildings also shook violently in the capital Taipei, but damage and disruption there was minimal.
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 Madam Yu, a 52-year-old woman, who gave only her family name. “They were non-stop. I did not dare sleep in the house.”
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 as a temporary shelter.
Indonesian Hendri Sutrisno occupied a tent with his wife and two-month-old baby at an elementary school in the city.
“We have all the necessary stuff – blankets, toilet and a place to rest.”
The 30-year-old professor at Hualien’s Dong Hwa University and his family were among more than 100 people who chose to stay in tents set up at the elementary school.
Dr Hendri said he and his wife hid under a table with their baby when the first quake hit, before grabbing their things and fleeing the building.
Meanwhile, workers poured concrete at the base of the glass-fronted Uranus building, which is so badly damaged that it now tilts at a 45-degree angle. It has now become a symbol for the quake, but for 59-year-old Chen Hsiu-ying, it was her home.
Sheltering at the elementary school, she said was on her way home from work when the earthquake occurred. “If I had gone back earlier, I would have been inside,” the carpenter said.
She also said she was shocked to see the road shaking and the food vendors on the streets shuddering during the quake.
Other residents queued outside the badly damaged 10-storey building in the city, waiting to get in and retrieve their 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 belongings out of windows into the street below.
“This building is no longer liveable,” said Ms 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, with the building lurching and furniture sliding, as she rushed to save the four puppies she keeps as pets.
“I am a Hualien native,” she said. “I am not supposed to fear earthquakes. But this is an earthquake that frightened us.” REUTERS, AFP
