Taiwan 6.4 Magnitude Earthquake Toppled Buildings; Left 8 Dead
Taiwanese rescuers are scrambling to search for survivors who may be trapped in high-rise buildings destroyed by magnitude-6.4 quake that hit the country at dawn on Saturday which reportedly killed at least 18 people or probably more and injured hundreds of terrified residents.
The government immediately mobilized around 800 soldiers to lead the emergency and rescue operations.
According to a report by BBC, an all-out rescue effort is an a race against time to pull out some remaining people still trapped in a rubble of 17-storey Weiguan Jinlong apartment block in the worst-hit city of Tainan in the country's southwest. So far, 350 people have been rescued alive by rescuers.
When the earthquake struck, some terrified residents recalled their frightening ordeal. A 71-year old plumber named Chang remembered how the earthquake brought immense fear and panic as he watched a nearby building collapsed during the violent shake. He went out of his apartment to offer whatever help he can to his desperate neighbors trapped in the rubble.
"She asked me to go back and rescue her husband, child, but I was afraid of a gas explosion so I didn't go in. At the time there were more people calling for help, but my ladder wasn't long enough so there was no way to save them," recalled Chang as quoted by NBC News in report picked up from Reuters.
Earthquakes are a staple natural disaster that often rattle Taiwan which lies in the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire". As response, Taiwan has been obsessed in perfecting an earthquake-proof technology to make buildings and other infrastructures more resistant to violent shaking of the earth.
Since the collapse of the said high-rise residential apartment complex in Tainan, an investigation has been initiated to determine whether the 26-year old building has met earthquake standards as per government requirement according to a report by Yahoo News.
