For nearly 130 hours, Liu Luan (
Rescuers must have certainly thought that what they were seeing was a manifestation of divine intervention, as Sun Chi-kuang (
Sun's father, Sun Cheng (
PHOTO: YEH JEN-HAO, LIBERTY TIMES
Even Deputy Mayor Ou Chin-der (
"I was stunned for a while when I saw him. Then he shouted out that his brother was still inside. Then I asked him who he was," Ou said. "He told me he was Sun Chi-kuang, a survivor."
Sun looked in fairly good health as he flashed a smile to rescuers and his approaching relatives, before being lifted down off the rubble by a crane.
About 20 minutes later, his elder brother, Sun Chi-fong (
Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
"He told me that he and his brother survived by eating rotten apples from a refrigerator buried with them, and by drinking mineral water and rain -- actually, it was the water we sprayed on the site through fire hoses -- as well as their own urine," Ma said.
Su Tsun-jeng (蘇忠仁), a doctor at the Armed Forces Sungshan Hospital where the brothers were sent, said that aside from smoke inhalation, dehydration and low body temperatures and blood pressure, the two were in a stable condition.
The rescue raised hopes among other relatives standing at the site that their loved ones could still be saved, and reinvigorated rescuers continued to fight against the clock, even with the specter looming of frightening aftershocks, which rocked the site yesterday.
The deputy mayor, who had been responsible for saving the lives of at least two people on the operation's first day, said the Sun brothers' survival had raised the morale of the rescue team. "We were greatly encouraged. We've always had hope. But as we saw bodies lifted from the rubble hour by hour, it was disheartening," he said.
"Now that we have seen these two men emerge from the rubble in sound health, our fatigue accumulated over the past 100 hours is gone," he said.
Ou said he had asked the younger brother to help identify his precise position in the wreckage and whether he had heard any sounds from other possible survivors still trapped in the darkness. "He said he heard the voice of an old woman, as well as the sound of how she opened a bottle of mineral water coming from a certain direction, about one or two days ago," he said.
Although doubts were obviously raised about Sun's orientation, especially in the dark, the rescue team threw its weight into pushing through the ruins in the direction Sun had pointed, in the hope of finding other survivors.
News of the recovery even prompted the Japanese team to return to the site at around 2:30pm.
But as waiting relatives moved out of an indoor resting area to sit directly opposite the wreckage, craning their necks to look for any more signs of life, they were to be disappointed as four more bodies were pulled from the ruins.
As of 10pm yesterday, the death toll at the site had reached 51, with about 50 believed to be still trapped, city officials said.
With night falling, however, no one was about to give up and rescue teams continued their toil. Anxious relatives continued to pray, hoping against the odds that the next miracle would be theirs.
Sun's mother, who later returned to the site to encourage her counterparts, brought them a message of strength: "I simply want to tell those who are still waiting that we've got to have hope."
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Yilan at 11:05pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter was located at sea, about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km, CWA data showed There were no immediate reports of damage. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Yilan County area on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. It measured 4 in other parts of eastern, northern and central Taiwan as well as Tainan, and 3 in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, and 2 in Lienchiang and Penghu counties and 1
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE: Beijing would likely intensify public opinion warfare in next year’s local elections to prevent Lai from getting re-elected, the ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ said Internal documents from a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company indicated that China has been using the technology to intervene in foreign elections, including propaganda targeting Taiwan’s local elections next year and presidential elections in 2028, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday. The Institute of National Security of Vanderbilt University obtained nearly 400 pages of documents from GoLaxy, a company with ties to the Chinese government, and found evidence that it had apparently deployed sophisticated, AI-driven propaganda campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan to shape public opinion, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. GoLaxy provides insights, situation analysis and public opinion-shaping technology by conducting network surveillance
Taiwan is gearing up to celebrate the New Year at events across the country, headlined by the annual countdown and Taipei 101 fireworks display at midnight. Many of the events are to be livesteamed online. See below for lineups and links: Taipei Taipei’s New Year’s Party 2026 is to begin at 7pm and run until 1am, with the theme “Sailing to the Future.” South Korean girl group KARA is headlining the concert at Taipei City Hall Plaza, with additional performances by Amber An (安心亞), Nick Chou (周湯豪), hip-hop trio Nine One One (玖壹壹), Bii (畢書盡), girl group Genblue (幻藍小熊) and more. The festivities are to
AFTERMATH: The Taipei City Government said it received 39 minor incident reports including gas leaks, water leaks and outages, and a damaged traffic signal A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Taiwan’s northeastern coast late on Saturday, producing only two major aftershocks as of yesterday noon, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The limited aftershocks contrast with last year’s major earthquake in Hualien County, as Saturday’s earthquake occurred at a greater depth in a subduction zone. Saturday’s earthquake struck at 11:05pm, with its hypocenter about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km. Shaking was felt in 17 administrative regions north of Tainan and in eastern Taiwan, reaching intensity level 4 on Taiwan’s seven-tier seismic scale, the CWA said. In Hualien, the
RSS