Taiwan demolishes buildings as rescue efforts intensify
HUALIEN (AFP) — Taiwan began demolishing three dangerously damaged buildings yesterday as rescue workers combed the rubble of a hotel in a last-ditch effort to find seven people still missing after a deadly earthquake.
At least 10 people were killed when the 6.4-magnitude quake hit the eastern tourist city of Hualien Tuesday. A family of five Chinese mainland nationals and a Canadian-Chinese couple remain missing.
They are all “believed to be trapped in the second floor of Yun Tsui building,” Hualien Mayor Fu Kun-chi said on local television yesterday, warning that the chances of finding people alive were now slim.
“Rescuers will seize the ‘golden 72 hours of rescue time’ to make an allout effort for rescue,” he added.
The powerful tremor left a handful of buildings badly damaged — some tilting at precarious angles — as well as roads torn up.
Three of the partially collapsed buildings have been cleared of people and are now being demolished “in order to maintain safety for the public,” the mayor said, adding that authorities are probing possible construction irregularities. The major focus for emergency responders remains another damaged building, the Yun Tsui
apartment block, which housed the Beauty Stay Hotel on its lower floors. Seven of the dead perished in that building and the remaining missing were hotel guests there.
The lower floors of the 12-story tower pancaked, leaving the structure leaning at a 50-degree angle and sparking fears of an imminent collapse.
National Fire Agency search and rescue team leader Liang Kuo-wei told
AFP it had taken 12 hours to break through to the second-floor hotel room where the Canadian couple were staying.
They had found their suitcase and “running shoes, sunglasses, and thermos,” he said, adding that they had earlier detected “signs of life” but had been unable to locate the couple.