{At least 26 people confirmed dead after 17-storey building in the city of Tainan collapses, trapping scores.}<\/p>\n
More than 100 people remain trapped under the rubble of a 17-storey building, as rescue teams race to find survivors after a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan.<\/p>\n
At least 26 people were killed and scores injured when the quake struck the city of Tainan about 4:00am local time on Saturday.<\/p>\n
More than 1,200 firefighters scrambled with ladders, cranes and other equipment to the ruins of the 17-storey residential building that collapsed. Over 170 people have been rescued so far.<\/p>\n
The Tainan emergency response centre said a 10-day-old infant and a small child were among those killed in the disaster, which came two days ahead of Lunar New Year celebrations, a major public holiday. <\/p>\n
IN PICTURES: Powerful quake hits southern Taiwan<\/p>\n
“She’s not answering my phone calls … I am trying to hold my emotions and stay strong. I’ll do that until I find her,” said a woman surnamed Chang, 42, waiting to hear from her 24-year-old daughter who lived on the fifth floor of the complex.<\/p>\n
“Nothing matters but to get her out. The lady living across the hallway was rescued yesterday. I know they will find her, but I have also planned for the worst. It’s been more than 20 hours now,” Reuters quoted the woman as saying.<\/p>\n
Reporting from outside the collapsed Wei Guan residential complex in Tainan, Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride said survivors were still being pulled out 12 hours after the quake destroyed the building. <\/p>\n
“The building is completely on its side, everything is down at ground level,” McBride said.<\/p>\n
“There are still finding survivors, the search and rescue operation is continuing,” he added. “There are teams crawling all over inside this main building – this is where most of the casualties it seems have occurred and most of the missing are still located – moving through floor by floor, going inside the structure.”<\/p>\n
The spectacular fall of the 17-storey high-rise immediately raised questions about its construction, and Taiwan’s interior minister said there would be an investigation. Nine other buildings in the city collapsed and five careened.<\/p>\n
At least 247 survivors were pulled out of the collapsed high-rise, the emergency response centre said, while over 90 people were sent to hospitals and eight people were unaccounted for.<\/p>\n
The Taiwanese news website ET Today reported that a mother and a daughter were among the survivors, and that the girl had to drink her urine to survive while waiting to be rescued.<\/p>\n
Dozens more people were evacuated from a market and a seven-floor building that was badly damaged, according to the official China Central News Agency.<\/p>\n
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake was centred 43km southeast of the city of nearly two million people.<\/p>\n
The quake was very shallow, at a depth of just 10km, which would have amplified its effects above the su[->http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2016\/02\/earthquake-measuring-64-hits-southern-taiwan-160205213442324.html]rface, the USGS said.<\/p>\n
At least five aftershocks of 3.8 magnitude or more shook Tainan about half-an-hour after the initial quake, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.<\/p>\n
A report in Taiwan’s China Post newspaper said: <\/p>\n
“The city government there has set up a level one emergency response centre. Onlookers are urged not to block access to emergency crews moving into the area.”<\/p>\n
Taiwan lies in the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire – near the junction of two tectonic plates – and is regularly hit by earthquakes.<\/p>\n
In September 1999, a powerful quake also hit southern Taiwan, killing an estimated 2,400 people.<\/p>\n
Source:Al Jazeera:Powerful earthquake rocks southern Taiwan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{At least 26 people confirmed dead after 17-storey building in the city of Tainan collapses, trapping scores.} More than 100 people remain trapped under the rubble of a 17-storey building, as rescue teams race to find survivors after a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan. At least 26 people were killed and scores injured when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000072022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000072022,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23053.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23053.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23053.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23053.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23053.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23053.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000072022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23053"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23053"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}