Rescuers find survivors in Taiwan quake rubble
TAINAN, Taiwan — As anxious families waited nearby, rescuers on Sunday pulled more survivors from the remains of a high- rise apartment building that collapsed a day earlier in an earthquake that shook southern Taiwan.
Today, a woman shielded under the body of her husband was pulled out alive, two days after the earthquake that killed at least 36 people. More than 100 remained buried in the building’s rubble.
Eastern Broadcasting Corp. reported that Tsao Wei- ling called out “here I am” as rescuers dug through to find her.
Rescuers said the body of Tsao’s husband shielded her from a collapsed beam, Taiwan’s government- run Central News Agency reported. Her 2- year- son also was found dead, while five members of her family remained unaccounted for, it said.
Sophisticated sensors deployed at the site detected faint signs of life Sunday, including occasional cries from some of the people still trapped.
Rescue workers were mainly using infrared sensors to locate people under
the rubble, supplemented with metal detectors and fiberoptic cables to help them navigate the buried terrain.
The government in Tainan, the worst- hit city, said that more than 170 people had been rescued alive from the 17- story building, which folded like an accordion after the quake struck.
Mao Yi- chen, 20, was rescued soon after the magnitude6.4 quake hit before dawn Saturday, and her older sister Mao Yi- hsuan was pulled out Sunday in serious condition. A rescue worker had handed over a photo album and homemade cards found next to her for her family to collect, local official Wang Ding- yu said.
“He said that ‘ Maybe your home is damaged, but memories of the family can last,’” Wang said.
The Tainan Disaster Emergency Center estimated that 118 people were still trapped at the building site, many at the bottom of the wreckage. Tainan Mayor Lai Ching- te said rescuers were able to reach many people by using information from residents who got out about the possible locations of those still inside.
The emergency center said that 34 of the confirmed 36 deaths from the earthquake were from the building collapse. It said that 171 people had been rescued from the building, 92 of whom were sent to hospitals. More than 100 people were rescued from other parts of Tainan, eight of whom received hospital treatment. Nine other buildings in the city collapsed and five careened.
Prosecutors had begun reviewing the construction and engineering of the collapsed building, built in 1989, while the city government had retained its own team of professional engineers to analyze the structure, said Chen Mei- ling, the city’s secretary general and fourth- highest official.
Two of the trapped in the apartment complex, a man and a woman at different sides of the building, were talking to rescue workers on Sunday evening, Lai said. He told reporters that rescuers intended to pull them out, and then bring in heavier excavators to remove part of the structure on top to allow access to the areas at the bottom.
But those hopes faded Sunday as investigators and officials learned that more than 100 young people, many of them students at nearby Kun Shan University, had been renting back rooms and interior apartments in the complex and had not been seen since the earthquake, said Liu Shih- chung, the deputy secretarygeneral of Tainan.
Before its collapse, the complex resembled a single, U- shaped structure. But it was built as nine connected blocks. The middle of the U collapsed while the two wings stayed largely intact as they fell sideways and on top of the pulverized remains of the middle section.
The two wings were occupied predominantly by permanent residents, many of whom were able to crawl out of exterior windows after the earthquake.
Permanent residents on the 15th floor of one of the two intact wings found themselves only 30 feet off the ground and were able to descend onto the ladders of firetrucks that arrived soon after.
Permanent residents and the authorities were unaware during the day Saturday that many people had been in the middle of the building, underneath the wings. But Liu said in an interview that evening that rescuers would work through the night to investigate the ruins, in case anyone was still inside. There was no sign Sunday morning that the rescue effort had ever slackened before the authorities realized that many temporary residents had been in the building.
The inner segments of the building had become an uneven mound of concrete, steel rods, tiles and other debris.
Li Nien- tzu, 27, a restaurant worker, heard the building collapse just before 4 a. m. Saturday and quickly ran over, wearing only cotton sandals, and began crawling into holes in the facade once filled by windows.
She said she ended up leading or helping carry 13 people from the building, although several had fatal injuries. “Outside the building, it looks quite complete,” she said. “But when you get inside, you have to descend inside with a rope. I held three children, and they were dead.”
A series of minor aftershocks prompted the authorities to use steel beams and heavy equipment to prop up one edge of a fallen wing of the building, fearing that it would collapse and crush survivors and rescue workers inside.
On Sunday, thousands of rescuers worked on different levels of the building. Rescuer Su Yu- min said they were trying to cut through walls and pillars.
“It takes a few hours to complete a search for just one household and sometimes it takes two hours just to go forward [ 12 inches]” when the way is blocked by a wall, he said.
Taiwanese broadcaster EBC showed video of volunteers trying to comfort the mother of a missing 20- yearold man, Chen Guan- yu. “He always thinks of me,” said the woman, whose name was not given. “He worries about me being single and lonely and that no one is taking care of me.”
Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan, but most are minor and cause little or no damage, though a magnitude- 7.6 quake in central Taiwan in 1999 killed more than 2,300 people.