Prosecutors in Tainan have arrested the developers of a building which collapsed during the quake on Saturday, February 6, resulting in the deaths of at least 39 people.
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“The Holy Father was saddened to learn of the suffering caused by the deadly natural disaster which struck in Tainan, leaving many people dead or seriously injured”, reads Sunday’s telegram, signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Another 94 people, including 21 children, are still believed trapped in the debris, the Tainan city government said.
Authorities have rescued more than 170 people – the vast majority in the immediate hours after the quake – from the folded building using information about the building layout and the possible location of those trapped.
All but two of the casualties in the quake were recorded in the collapse of Tainan’s Weiguan Golden Dragon 17-story complex.
The CNA reported that as rescuer pulled the girl from the rubble, said told them, “uncle, I am very thirsty”.
The declaration came as he visited survivors receiving treatment at National Cheng Kung University Hospital, the official Central News Agency reported.
Among them were an eight-year-old girl, a woman found shielded under the body of her dead husband, and a man who doctors said would have to have his lower left leg amputated. Le Le’s owner, 50-year-old Lin Shiu-chu, had been rescued earlier and hospitalized with broken arms and fractured ribs.
Several questions have been raised over the structural integrity of the Weiguan Golden Dragon Building, which was built in 1989.
Rescuers had detected life within the area where the 16th-floor apartment of her son and his family were thought to be, and were said to have heard the sound of a child.
Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly hit by earthquakes.
The extended Lunar New Year holiday officially started on Monday, but celebrations were subdued and both President Ma Ying-jeou and president-elect Tsai Ing-wen canceled the handing out of angpao (envelopes containing money) in their hometowns, a holiday tradition for Taiwan’s leader.
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Residents in Taiwan’s south and central regions had recalled experiencing tremors resembling those felt in a magnitude 7.3 quake in 1999 that killed more than 2,400 people.
