MONITORING (SW) – A helicopter plucked to safety on Thursday six people stranded in a mining area after Taiwan’s worst earthquake in 25 years, while hundreds of aftershocks rocking the eastern region near its epicenter drove scores more to seek shelter outdoors.
The number of injured in Wednesday’s 7.2-magnitude quake rose to 1,058, authorities said, while most of the roughly 50 hotel workers marooned on a highway as they travelled to a resort in a national park had been located.
A further 646 people are still trapped, most of them in hotels in the park, a key tourist attraction, as the road was cut off, the fire department said.
The death toll stayed at nine from the earthquake that struck offshore on Wednesday, just as people were readying to go to work and school in largely rural and sparsely populated Hualien county.
Buildings also shook violently in Taipei, the capital, but there was minimal damage and disruption there.
Those trapped in buildings in the worst-hit city of Hualien have all been rescued, but many residents unnerved by more than 300 aftershocks spent the night outdoors.
Dozens of residents queued outside one badly damaged 10-storey building in the city, waiting to get in and retrieve belongings.
“This building is no longer liveable,” said Tian Liang-si, who lived on the fifth floor, as she scrambled to gather her laptop, family photographs and other crucial items.
“I’m a Hualien native,” she told Reuters. “I’m not supposed to fear earthquakes. But this is an earthquake that frightened us.”
