A powerful earthquake shook much of Taiwan on Sunday, toppling a three-story building, temporarily trapping four people inside and leaving some 400 tourists on a mountainside.
The 6.8-magnitude quake on the Richer scale was the largest of dozens to hit the island’s southeast coast since Saturday night, when a 6.4-magnitude quake hit the same area. There were no immediate reports of serious injuries.
Most of the damage occurred north of the epicenter, which Taiwan’s Central Meteorological Bureau said was in the city of Chishang.
A three-story building, which had a convenience store on the ground floor and residences on the upper floors, collapsed in the nearby town of Yuli, the island’s Central News Agency reported.
The 70-year-old building owner and his wife were the first of four arrested people to be pulled from the rubble, followed by a 39-year-old woman and her 5-year-old daughter.
The top two floors of the building were strewn across the street, with electrical cables lying across the collapsed structure. More than 7,000 homes were left without power in Yuli, and water pipes were also damaged.
Police and firefighters also responded to the collapse of a bridge on a two-lane road in what appeared to be a rural area of the same city, where three people and one or more vehicles could have fallen, according to press reports.
Also in Yuli, a landslide trapped around 400 tourists on a mountain famous for the orange lilies that cover its slopes at this time of year, the Central News Agency reported.
Debris from a fallen awning on a platform at Dongli station in Fuli city, which lies between Yuli and the epicenter in Chishang, hit a passing train and derailed six carriages, the Central News Agency said, citing the railway administration. None of the 20 passengers was injured, he added.
The quake was felt in the far north of the island, in the capital, Taipei. In the city of Taoyuan, west of Taipei and 210 kilometers north of the epicenter, a man was injured when a roof collapsed on the fifth floor of a sports center. The Japan Meteorological Agency has issued a tsunami warning for several islands in southern Japan.
Source: Observadora
