Death Toll in Taiwan Earthquake Rises to 11
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – At least 11 people were killed and 475 were injured as of Saturday morning, after a magnitude-6.4 earthquake hit Taiwan on Friday.
More than 200 people were rescued from damaged structures, many from a 17-story residential building that collapsed in Tainan, officials told CNN. At least five of the dead were from the Weiguan Jinlong building.
Rescuers are still trying to reach at least eight more people they've discovered trapped in the rubble.
More than 60 people in the city remain hospitalized, disaster officials said.
"This was strong enough to not only be felt here in the [Taiwanese] capital city of Taipei but also in the southern provinces of China," Elise Hu, an correspondent who was in Taipei when the quake hit, said in an interview with CNN. "Taiwan is very used to earthquakes and tremors, but this is far more significant than the island has seen in quite a while."
More than 1,500 people are involved in rescue efforts, the disaster center said. Seven other buildings were damaged.
A man who was staying in a three-story apartment building in Tainan told Chinese state media CCTV the building was shaking violently when the quake hit before sunrise. His room tilted 45 degrees, and items inside his room spilled all over the floor.
Unable to use the stairs, he managed to escape from the window of the second floor.
As of Saturday morning (Friday evening ET), about 900,000 homes were experiencing power outages across the country and some 400,000 were dealing with water outages.
About 1.9 million people live in Tainan, Taiwan's oldest city.
