Advertisement
Advertisement
Rescuers remove debris as they continue to search for survivors from a collapsed building in Tainan late into the night. Photo: EPA

Taiwan quake collapse linked to shoddy materials as death toll in Tainan rises

Search goes on for missing in southern city amid reports that collapsed high-rise had tins and Styrofoam used as filler in wall beams

Taiwanese authorities are to launch an investigation into the construction materials used in a high-rise residential building that collapsed after a deadly ­earthquake struck the island’s southern city of Tainan just before dawn on Saturday.

At least 13 people, including a 10-day-old girl, were killed and 484 others injured after the shallow, magnitude-6.4 earthquake struck the south of the island, triggering the dramatic collapse of the building while neighbouring properties showed little damage.

“We will come to this issue shortly after we complete our rescue operation, which is still the first priority at the moment,” Tainan Mayor Lai Ching-te said.

Eleven residents of the building were killed by the quake, while two other people in the city died after being hit by falling debris.

READ MORE: Hostel owner in superstition-rich Taiwan sees temblor as ghost of devastating September 21 quake

Local media reported that shoddy building materials, including empty tins and Styrofoam used as filler in wall beams, could be one reason why the 16-storey Wei Guan residential block – which included a care centre for newborns – collapsed so easily.

The building’s floors folded on each other like an accordion, with the lowest floors collapsing into a pile of rubble and twisted metal after the quake struck at 3.57 am at the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday weekend.

READ MORE: Explainer - the damage dealt by Saturday’s shocking Taiwan quake

The Tainan City Government said 256 people, based in 96 units, were residents of the building at the time of the collapse.

But by late Saturday night, 258 people had been pulled from the rubble, which showed more people were in the building than originally expected. Eleven people pulled from the rubble, ­including the baby, died on the way to hospital, city officials said.

WATCH: Taiwan apartment toppled by quake

Rescuers, aided by search dogs and life detecting devices, were still searching for more survivors as of 10.45pm.

“We are doing everything we can to look for survivors,” a ­firefighter, who was part of the rescue team, said.

More than 1,230 rescuer workers, including 840 soldiers, have been deployed as part of the massive rescue operation.

The epicentre of the quake, the power of which was reportedly the equivalent of two atomic bombs, was actually 45km from Tainan, in Meinung, Kaohsiung City, said Kuo Chi-wen, director of the earthquake centre under the Central Weather Bureau.

“But Tainan was hit hardest of all because it is a big terrain with relatively soft geological formation. The impact tends to be amplified when it is a shallow earthquake,” Kuo said.

The shockwave that hit Tainan lasted 44 seconds, compared with one of less than 20 seconds that struck Kaohsiung, the earthquake centre said.

For those tourists from mainland China and elsewhere who felt the tremors, the ordeal continued to haunt them throughout the day.

Wang Mingyang from China’s northeastern Jilin province was woken by tremors at around 4am (local time) as his hotel bed started to shake in the southern port city of Kaohsiung.

“The hotel building was shaking violently. I felt I was about to die,” Wang recalled after a temblor left the city of Tainan reeling some 40 km away.

‘The earthquake was not like how I imagined it would be,” he said.

“The floor was tilting and the lamps and stuff on the table were all moving. Some things fell off the table.”

Like many tourists from mainland China, Wang was spending his Lunar New Year holiday on the island with his loved ones, in this case - his girlfriend. Chinese New Year falls on Monday.

The Tainan city government said two people suffered cardiac arrest.

Wang said the tremors lasted a few minutes and were followed what he described as aftershocks.

He said he considered running downstairs but decided against this on the advice of his partner.

While his hotel was left intact, other buildings nearby were damaged to various degrees, he said, adding that he would be travelling back to the capital Taipei by bus later in the day as he had heard that all trains were suspended.

There were no reports of injuries to tourists from the Chinese mainland or Hong Kong, despite nine travel agencies from Beijing having 50 tourist groups totalling 713 people currently in Taiwan, according to the Beijing Youth Daily.

WATCH: Survivors hauled to safety after Taiwan quake

Johanna Ma, a Hong Kong resident who was visiting her in-laws with her husband nearby when the quake hit, recounted the details of her experience to the South China Morning Post.

“I thought someone had grabbed me by the shoulders and was shaking me violently as I slept. After five seconds, I realised it was a giant earthquake,” she said.

“We quickly grabbed a few belongings and walked down 12 flights of stairs. We drove to a building that had collapsed near our home in the eastern district of our city. We saw that the second floor had sunk to ground level and the first floor had disappeared!”

She is planning to return to Hong Kong on Tuesday.

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.

In Tainan, rescuers pulled out more people from a second Wei Guan high-rise, which had 16 floors and housed 150 families. The road where the building is located had gas leaks and water pipe ruptures, the news agency said.

Several other buildings also were collapsed or partially damaged, while dozens were rescued from a market and another seven-floor building, the Central News Agency reported.

A bank building also careened, but no injuries were reported, it said.

Beijing expressed its concern and sympathy to the people of Tainan and said it has been keeping close contact with Taiwan to monitor events and offer help, was the message conveyed by Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office

The Association for Relations Across Taiwan Straits is willing to aid with rescue efforts if needed, Ma told the official Xinhua news agency.

As dawn broke, live Taiwanese TV showed survivors being brought gingerly from the high-rise buildings, 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 uniforms, apparently military personnel, marched into one area of collapse carrying large shovels.

The temblor was located some 22 miles (36 kilometres) southeast of Yujing, according to the US Geological Survey.

Post