Survivors pulled out from Taiwan building
At
least four people, including an eight-year-old girl, have been rescued
from a high-rise Taiwanese apartment building toppled by a powerful
quake two days earlier, as frustration grew among families waiting for
searchers to reach their buried loved ones.
More than 100 people
are believed to still be under the debris in a disaster that struck
during the most important family holiday in the Chinese calendar, the
Lunar New Year.
Saturday's quake killed at least 38 people in
Tainan city in southern Taiwan, all but two of them in the collapse of
the 17-storey building. Even though the 6.4-magnitude quake was shallow,
few buildings were reported to have been damaged, which experts said
was because Taiwan's building standards are high.
Authorities have
managed to rescue more than 170 people - the vast majority in the
immediate hours after the quake - from the folded building using
information about the building layout and the possible location of those
trapped.
Five survivors were believed to have been pulled out on
Sunday, and at least four on Monday. One of them, Tsao Wei-ling, called
out "Here I am" as rescuers dug through to find her, Taiwan's Eastern
Broadcasting Corp reported.
She was found under the body of her
husband, who had shielded her from a collapsed beam, the government-run
Central News Agency reported. Tsao's husband and two-year-old son were
found dead, and five other members of the family remained unaccounted
for, it said.
Teams also rescued on Monday a 42-year-old man from
the building, and, later, an eight-year-old girl, who had been trapped
for more than 61 hours.
Mayor Lai Ching-Te told reporters he briefly exchanged words with the girl, Lin Su-chin.
"She
is awake, but looks dehydrated, lost some temperature but she's awake
and her blood pressure is OK," he said. "I asked her if there's anything
wrong with her body. She shook her head."
Shortly afterward,
rescue workers also pulled out a 28-year-old Vietnamese woman,
identified as Chen Mei-jih, who had been trapped on what was the
building's fifth floor.
Family members of the missing flooded into the information centre in search of their loved ones or to wait anxiously.
Tensions rose as some relatives, losing patience, demanded to speak to rescue workers directly to get the latest information.
A
couple sitting in a small room where officials release information said
they had heard no news about their son and his family, including their
young grandsons.
"Does that mean we are here to wait for bodies?" grandfather Liu Meng-hsun cried out angrily.
Outside,
a woman stood at the edge of the rubble shouting, "Your grandma is
here!" Rescuers had detected life within the area where the 16th-floor
apartment of her son and his family was thought to be, and were said to
have heard the sound of a child.
Her son, surnamed Wu, got out of
the building soon after the quake, but his wife and their four-year-old
girl remained trapped, according to volunteers assisting the family.
Earthquakes
rattle Taiwan frequently. Most are minor and cause little or no damage,
though a magnitude-7.6 quake in central Taiwan in 1999 killed more than
2300 people.
The spectacular fall of the high-rise, built in
1989, raised questions about whether its construction had been shoddy.
The government says it will investigate whether the developer cut
corners.
Huang Jia-rui, a structural engineer in Tainan, said
Taiwan's buildings aren't as quake-proof as Japan's, which is a leader
in engineering quake-proof structures, but the island is catching up.
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