Hundreds Stranded in Collapsed Buildings as Powerful Earthquake Hits Taiwan

An earthquake of at least magnitude 6.8 struck Taiwan on Sunday, derailing trains and causing buildings to collapse.

Hundreds of tourists were reportedly trapped in a mountain resort by a landslide, while rescue workers were able to extract several families from the ruins of a three-story building.

The Sunday quake was the strongest in a series of tremors over the weekend, concluding with an earthquake of magnitude 5.6 on Monday. The epicenter of the seismic activity was near the town of Chishang on the southwestern coast of Taiwan.

Sky News reported on a three-story building in the town of Yuli whose top two floors were blown off by the quake:

The 70-year-old owner of the building and his wife were rescued first, but it took longer to get to a 39-year-old woman and her five-year-old daughter.

A photo released by the Hualien city government showed the girl lying on a blanket and being handed down a metal ladder from the top of the debris by helmeted rescue workers in orange uniforms.

Photos showed the top two stories sprawled across a narrow street and on to the other side, with electricity wires pulled down by the fallen building.

A bridge also collapsed in Yuli, reportedly taking several vehicles and motorists with it.

“A canopy on a platform at Dongli station in Fuli town, which is between Yuli and the quake’s epicenter at Chishang, hit a train, leaving three of the cars tilted at an angle,” Sky News added, quoting the Taiwanese railway administration.

Meanwhile, an avalanche cut off a resort on a mountain in Yuli famed for its orange day lilies, leaving some 400 tourists trapped with no electricity and minimal cell phone signal.

Hundreds more people were stranded on mountain roads cut off by the quake. 

The ceiling of a sports club in Taoyuan came down in the middle of a badminton game, sending players and spectators running for their lives:

A total of 146 injuries have been reported so far, and mercifully only one fatality, a 69-year-old cement worker who died at a job site when a pile of building materials collapsed on him.

The quake was felt in the northern capital of Taipei and the industrial cities of Tainan and Kaohsiung, but no serious damage was reported. A tsunami alert was issued on Sunday by the Japan Meteorological Agency, but was canceled an hour later.

President Tsai Ing-wen on Sunday warned the Taiwanese public to remain alert for more seismic activity, pledging to keep response agencies at the highest level of readiness.

Taiwan’s deadliest earthquake occurred in 1999 when a magnitude 7.7 quake centered less than a hundred miles south of Taipei killed 2,400 people and injured 10,000 more. The 1999 quake destroyed thousands of buildings, leaving over 100,000 people homeless.