As of the latest report, 23 have died as a Taiwan earthquake of 6.4 magnitude devastated the small country. About 100 people are feared trapped under the damaged building in the city of Tainan.
Rescuers were racing against the clock Sunday and are frantically trying to extricate the 100 people or so trapped inside an apartment building in the Taiwanese southern city.
A 20-year old man was pulled out of the collapsed building on Sunday giving hope to rescuers that there would be more. But the city mayor said that it would be very difficult to get to the dozens of people still trapped under the rubble.
"Of the 132 people desperately waiting for rescue, 103 people are buried very deep, there's no way to get to them direct, it's very difficult," William Lai, the Tainan mayor said.
A majority of those reported dead in the Taiwan earthquake were those inside the 16-storey apartment building that collapsed. This apartment approximately consisted of nearly 100 homes jam-packed with families celebrating the Chinese New Year.
According to city authorities, there were only 256 registered homes in the building. But it seems more people were inside the building because of the annual Chinese New Year celebrations.
Rescuers have a hard time deciding on whether to use heavy equipment to reach most of the people still trapped inside. Using such machineries will even put the lives of at least 29 people at risk.
It seems that rescuers have a good idea on where these people are located and according to the city mayor, their focus now is to assess the condition of these people and when they can safely use their heavy equipment.
Rescuers were already able to extricate over 240 survivors from inside the rubble. Wearing red and yellow overalls, they were successful in inserting huge structural supports under the collapsed slabs to help them search for more survivors of the Taiwan earthquake.
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