Taiwan residents rattled by fear and anger

Hualien:

At an elementary school turned shelter in Taiwan’s Hualien city, some survivors of a tower block left teetering by Tuesday’s quake were baffled and angry that such a seemingly solid structure had folded with deadly results.

Emergency workers yesterday were still pulling bodies from the 12-storey Yun Tsui apartment block, which was left tottering at a fifty-de- gree angle when its lower floors pancaked during the 6.4-magnitude quake. At least six of the 10 confirmed dead so far perished there.

“It’s unbelievable such a big building toppled,” 66-year-old Chen Chien-hsiang said as fellow residents huddled under blankets, occasional aftershocks rattling the school and their already frayed nerves.

“We question whether the struc- tural integrity of the building was damaged. Otherwise why else would it fall the way it did?”

Like many of those who survived, Chen had to crawl his way out of an apartment upended by the tremor.

His apartment was on the sixth floor, but he managed to drag himself out of a window which was suddenly perched closer to the ground as a result of the quake.

Another resident, 70-year-old Chang Te-ching, said many apartment owners feared that the lower floors of the complex containing a hotel and restaurant may have lacked proper reinforcement to support the building’s weight.

“Residential shouldn’t be combined with commercial. There are laws regulating this but it hasn’t been executed well,” he said. — AFP

We question whether the structural integrity of the building was damaged. Otherwise why else would it fall the way it did? Chen Chien-hsiang