Rescuers in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan pulled out
221 people and three dead from a residential high-rise complex that collapsed
when a shallow 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck before dawn Saturday, leaving
still others trapped inside.
Firefighters and soldiers scrambled with ladders, cranes and
other equipment to the two towers that folded like an accordion in a pile of
rubble and twisted metal and extracted dazed survivors.
The emergency response center told AP that three people were
killed, including a 10-day-old infant, a 55-year-old woman and a 50-year-old
man.
Taiwan's official news agency said the infant and the man
were pulled out of a 17-story Wei Guan residential building and that both were
later declared dead. The agency said 256 people were believed to be living in
92 households. A second 16-story high-rise also collapsed in the same way and
fell on its side, and more than 30 survivors have been pulled out from there. Dozens
more people have b
A bank building also careened, but no injuries were
reported, it said.
Most people were caught asleep when temblor struck about 4
am local time (2000 GMT Friday). It was located some 22 miles (36 kilometres)
southeast of Yujing, and struck about six miles (10 kilometres) underground,
according to the US Geological Survey.
As dawn broke, live Taiwanese TV showed survivors being
brought gingerly from the high-rise, including an elderly woman in a neck brace
and others wrapped in blankets. The trappings of daily life — a partially
crushed air conditioner, pieces of a metal balcony, windows — lay twisted in
rubble.
People with their arms around firefighters were being helped
from the building, and cranes were being used to search darkened parts of the
structure for survivors. Newscasters said other areas of the city were still
being canvassed for possible damage.
Men in camouflage, apparently military personnel, marched
into one area of collapse carrying large shovels.
The Taiwanese news website ET Today reported that a mother
and a daughter were among the survivors pulled from the Wei Guan building and
that the girl drank her urine while waiting for rescue, which came sooner than
expected.
The quake was felt as a lengthy, rolling shake in the
capital, Taipei, on the other side of the island. But Taipei was quiet, with no
sense of emergency or obvious damage just before dawn.
Residents in mainland China also reported that the tremor
was felt there.
Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan, but most are minor and
cause little or no damage.
However, a magnitude-7.6 earthquake in central Taiwan in
1999 killed more than 2,300 people.
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