After a long and terrifying night, survivors of the collapsed Weiguan Jinlong residential building in Tainan’s Yongkang District (永康) gave a visceral account of their near-death experiences and struggles following a powerful earthquake that hit southern Taiwan early yesterday morning, while neighbors expressed disbelief over the frailty of the building.
The bulk of the 17-story residential building was left lying on its side on Yongda Road (永大路) after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck at 3:57am, followed by a series of strong aftershocks.
Rescuers have been racing to find survivors in the rubble, with some pulled to safety from the wreck, while others managed to find their own way out.
Photo: Yao Yue-hung, Taipei Times, courtesy of the Tainan City Government Fire Bureau
A man lying on a stretcher made a phone call to members of his family to tell them he had survived the quake.
A man who had been hospitalized rushed back to the scene and attempted to enter the collapsed building to look for his wife and children. He was stopped by firefighters as the wait for his family members continued.
Residents said their cellphones could still pick up signals even though they were trapped in the debris.
Photo: Chang Chung-i, Taipei Times
A family of four said their faces were all grazed and their clothes were covered with dust.
The father, surnamed Chen (陳), said: “We were shaken awake and the building collapsed in seconds. It was pitch black and I was pinned down. People in the building gasped and screamed for help. It was really scary.”
Chen said he wrapped himself in a blanket and rolled himself toward a flat surface, where he then followed the light filtering through the wreckage and began his climb to safety.
Chen, whose wife and two children also made it out of the rubble safely, said his family lived on the eighth floor, but that his apartment had been reduced to the height of three stories following the quake.
“Now all I have is my family. Where is our future?” he said, adding that he had only bought the apartment in November last year, for which he paid NT$2.7 million (US$80,549).
Since the earthquake ruptured some water and gas pipelines, the site was at one point flooded and the smell of gas permeated the air.
Rescuers went apartment to apartment, drawing red circles near windows of units they had already searched.
“I went to the top floors of the middle part of the building, where we found five people, one of whom was in bed and already dead,” said Liu Wen-bin, a 50-year-old rescuer from Taichung.
“Some people were found in the shower, some in the bedroom,” he said.
Firefighters also combed the site to attend to injured residents, providing care where needed and rushing those with serious injuries to hospitals.
After knocking down a parapet to the south of the building, rescuers managed to pull more people from the rubble, with some survivors pleading with rescuers to save family members who were still trapped inside the wreckage.
The online news Web site ET Today reported that a girl drank her own urine while waiting to be rescued, which happened sooner than expected.
A college student, surnamed Yang (楊), who lives across the building on Nanwan Street (南灣街), said he was still awake when the first earthquake struck.
He said that he heard a thunderous noise 10 seconds later and saw the “unbelievable scene.”
“I cannot believe that a building that looks so sturdy collapsed in 10 seconds,” he said.
Onlookers and relatives of the survivors expressed puzzlement over the quality of the building.
“I wonder why the building collapsed when nearby two-story buildings only had some fallen tiles,” a woman said.
“The building must have been there for almost 20 years. Who would have thought it would suddenly collapse?” another said.
Rescuers said that they had discovered polystyrene alongside reinforced steel in one of the building’s damaged beams, while photos from the scene also showed cans embedded in the concrete.
The Tainan Structural Engineers’ Association said it would investigate whether any shortcuts had been taken during the construction of the building.
Additional reporting by AP
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