Search-and-rescue operations in mountainous regions of Taichung County's Hoping township (和平鄉) came to a standstill yesterday due to new landslides caused by an aftershock in the morning. Earlier in the day, additional rescue teams, including a foreign one, had arrived in the area.
A section of road two kilometers beyond Kukuan (
The road, which had been blocked since the 921 earthquake struck Taiwan, had just re-opened on Wednesday.
Several members of a volunteer rescue team, who made their way into blocked regions along the highway, were injured by falling stones and had to retreat.
Team leader Liao Ching-yi (
"We forced our way through partially or totally damaged sections of the road and got as far as Malun (
The area that Liao's team reached is around four to five kilometers into the blocked regions, which extend for over ten kilometers from a point outside Kukuan eastward to Tehchi (德基).
"We passed through several sections of road, whose base collapsed in the earthquake and became a steep slope, by walking cautiously step by step," he said.
Liao told the Kukuan rescue command center that he had detected foul odors coming from blocked road tunnels in the region.
The new landslides and the anxiety that accompanied them caused all search-and-rescue operations to be halted, with only engineering personnel continuing the work of clearing rocks and mud from the road near Kukuan and in other places along the route.
Taichung County Fire Department senior officer Yang Tsun-kai (楊純凱), who coordinates search operations in Kukuan, said search-and-rescue work will resume today, with some rescuers planning to go into blocked areas by foot and others using helicopters to venture further into the mountains.
Yang said that the chances of finding survivors now are slim.
While it is not known how many people might have been trapped in the region, reports from various sources indicated that the number could be in the dozens.
Morale was low after the landslides, but a rescue team from Mexico arrived in Kukuan around noon and helped boost spirits among rescue workers.
The TOPOS Brigada de Rescate, which has assisted in search-and-rescue work in other parts of Taiwan, consists of nine members. They were briefed by the command center.
"The situation up there in the mountains is very bad and dangerous. But we will try again this morning," a brigade member said.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs' department of the affairs of the Central and South Americas director Rex Lin (林榮發), who accompanied the Mexican team to Kukuan, said the team is different from other foreign rescue teams in that they are willing to search for people who might have already been killed in last week's earthquake.
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