A day after the largest earthquake to strike the island in 25 years, engineers started a mammoth clean-up operation, and on Thursday, Taiwanese rescuers labored to reach scores of people trapped in highway tunnels.
The magnitude 7.4 earthquake on Wednesday left ten people dead and about 1,100 injured, but tight building codes and increased public preparedness seem to have prevented a major calamity on the island.
Dozens of residents of the worst-hit city, Hualien, spent a night outdoors rather than in apartments still being shaken by aftershocks, and a huge engineering operation was underway to fix damaged roads and prop up tilting buildings.
A helicopter made two flights to rescue six miners who were stuck in a gypsum quarry in Hualien county, close to the epicenter of the earthquake, according to a dramatic video that the island’s Central Emergency Operation Centre released on Thursday.
A feature of the roadways that cut through the picturesque mountains and cliffs leading to Hualien City from the north and west, the county’s network of well-built tunnels held scores of other people, the positions of whom were known to rescuers.
Roads leading to a youth activity center and opulent hotel close to Taroko National Park were closed by landslides, where hundreds of people were camped out.
“I also hope that we can use today’s time to find all people who are stranded and unaccounted for and help them settle down,” Premier Chen Chien-jen said after a briefing at an emergency operation centre in Hualien.
Since the initial earthquake, the island has had hundreds of powerful aftershocks. The authorities issued a warning to the public, cautioning them against traveling to rural areas during Qingming, a two-day public holiday that started on Thursday, in case landslides or rockfalls occurred.
On this holiday, families customarily go to their ancestors’ tombs to clean the gravesites and burn offerings.
“Do not go to the mountains unless necessary,” warned President Tsai Ing-wen.
The national disaster agency said 10 people had been killed and 1,099 injured in the quake.
