The Taiwan rescue teams seek Thursday to free people trapped in tunnels and remote roads after a powerful earthquake the day before that caused ten deaths and more than a thousand injuries.
Dozens of people in the city of Hualien, the closest to the epicenter, slept outdoors due to the damage suffered by buildings, some of which were completely tilted after the shaking.
“I hope that today we can use the time to find all the people who are stranded and unaccounted for,” Premier Chen Chien-jen said from the emergency operation center in Hualien.
Rescue teams know the whereabouts of dozens of people trapped in the road network of this county, located between mountains and cliffs and full of tunnels that lead to the city of Hualien.
In addition, hundreds of people were stranded in a luxury hotel and a youth center because the roads leading to them are blocked by landslides.
In the hualien citya glass building became an emblem of the earthquake when it was left at an impossible 45-degree angle due to the crushing of part of its first floor.
“When the earthquake hit, we immediately evacuated customers and urged them to leave,” Wang Zhong-chang, owner of the nearby Hualien Hero Hotel, told AFP.
Although the strict construction regulations of this island seem to have avoided a major disaster, the government urged citizens to remain cautious in the face of the around 300 aftershocks that were recorded after the first earthquake.
➡️ Join the El Sol de México channel on WhatsApp so you don’t miss the most important information
Estimated at magnitude 7.4 by the United States Geological Survey, the quake is the most powerful to hit Taiwan since 1999, when a 7.6 quake killed 2,400 people.
The Shake triggered tsunami warnings in Taiwan, Philippines and Japanbut they got up shortly after without any major mishaps.