Some 50km from the epicenter, Fengyuan felt the full force of yesterday's earthquake. A 12-story building, once home to dozens of families, lay on its side, just another in a shattered neighborhood. Rescue workers clambered over its dusty remains, digging almost without hope in the search for those that lay trapped inside.
The structure itself had split in half -- the bottom sinking into its foundations at an angle, the other half tearing away and toppling over a major roadway in the town's center. It finally came to rest on a cluster of two-story residential buildings.
Rescue efforts at the scene were hampered by the sheer amount of rubble that needed to be moved. Family members of those trapped inside stood by watching, visibly shell-shocked by the violent quake. Some picked small items -- old milk bottles, bits of photo albums -- from the rubble in what appeared to be an attempt to keep their minds distracted from the tragedy that lay before them.
Backhoes worked through the wreckage, and up to fifty soldiers helped to clear out debris from the stricken building. Crushed vehicles peered out from the edge of the twisted concrete and metal -- a surreal reminder that the building had once housed an underground parking lot.
Every place where the earthquake's destructive power had been unleashed, the look on the faces of both survivors and rescuers was the same -- aloof, weary and desperate to find any trace of life. Emotionless, some passed bricks, one at a time, to the next person, in a slow, but sure bucket-brigade operation.
One rescuer pulled from the rubble a couple of unopened bottles of Chilean red wine, quickly casting them aside like the other refuse.
One onlooker from the neighborhood, surnamed Han, commented: "It's easier for newer buildings to fall apart." Han, who lives in an older home, made it clear he trusted traditional architecture more than modern technology.
He said the room he was in at the time of the quake "shook for ten minutes," but that there had been no major damage. Han, like many others, gathered his family, got in their car, and drove to the nearest open space. But he said he would return to his home later in the day.
"Of course I'm uneasy, but we've got to be brave," he said.
Many onlookers and local residents expressed skepticism over the integrity of the quality standards of local construction.
Na De-hui (
A Red Cross volunteer agreed.
"Look at how thin the rebar is in certain areas," said Wang Ming-shen (
Shortly after, he rushed off with other rescue workers to pull a middle-aged man from what remained of the building ... but tragically, he was already dead.
The latest estimates agreed there were still around ten people trapped within the building.
"It's been too long for some of those inside to survive," said one bystander.
But soon after, a nine- or ten-year-old boy was pulled from the ruins after being trapped under rubble for more than 12 hours.
According to another bystand-er, many people had recently moved into newer buildings in Fengyuan because they are closer to the freeway, and therefore more convenient for travel to other places such as Taipei or Taichung.
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