Efforts to rescue so far resulted in more than 20 people having their names erased from the search list as the strongest earthquake in Taiwan within 25 years four days ago. The quake led to the collapse of buildings, relief of landslides, and, worst-case scenario – nine lives.
In the city of Hualien, close to the earthquake’s pronounced point, workers are still in their complete strength and they are using the heavy machinery to stabilize the damaged building and to prevent the collapse. Dean Chen-wei, Mr. Mayor, told those present that 48 homes were damaged, with some leaning dangerously, and their lower floors some of them being ended up in state of total collapse.
This earthquake, which occurred on Wednesday morning, killed over 1000 innocent citizens. Among the files, four lives were claimed as victims at Taroko National Park, a famous tourist location renowned for its cliffs, avenues, canyons, waterfalls and rivers.
As of April 4, Dragan Gajić of the National Fire Agency declared that not less than 150 people are still either trapped or out of communication. For example, both tourists within the national park and also people working at rock quarries might be caught unprepared for the crisis. Falling rocks have sagged on the road surface therefore traveling to the site on the ground has become risky causing the six workers to be air-lifted.
Rescue attempts have been put live on TV, showing the neighbours and many rescue personnel bringing people out of damaged ones. Similarly, the question about who survived or if anyone was still trapped within is left unanswered.
The earthquake destroyed massive number of roadblocks and damaged bridges, tunnels . While the economic losses have not been yet evaluated, the telecom sector, especially computer chips manufacturing, which is a technology intensive industry, is often affected in case of disasters.
Taiwan is known for high seismic risk and has developed the necessary precautions against emergency cases. Even though the latest quake has made China a country that is more sensitive to earthquakes. Hualien has already been subjected to an 8 February 2018 earthquake. In 1999, Taiwan experienced its most severe earthquake of all, which resulted in great chaos and the death of thousands.
