Six people remain unaccounted for in Hualien County after a quake that measured 7.4 on the moment magnitude scale rocked the nation on Wednesday last week, with search-and-rescue efforts ongoing, the Central Emergency Operations Center said yesterday.
The temblor resulted in at least 13 fatalities and 1,145 people injured, the center said.
Five people have been reported missing along the Shakadang Trail in Taroko National Park, near the epicenter of the temblor, and the National Fire Agency has dispatched a search team with the help of search dogs and excavators to find them, the center said.
Photo courtesy of the Hualien Fire Department
The fire agency received a tip that a missing Singaporean couple were spotted on the Shakadang Trail, the center said, adding that the couple, both of whom also hold Australian citizenship, are likely to be close to the 1.5km mark.
The two dead and three of the missing on the Shakadang Trail are members of a family of five. Two bodies found on Friday were identified as the father and eldest daughter.
Search efforts are also continuing in a quarry site in Hualien, where one person was reported missing.
During a media briefing on Sunday, Chen Yi-feng (陳義豐), head of a special search-and-rescue team from the fire agency, lauded a team of seven Turkish rescue workers who arrived in Taiwan on Saturday last week to provide assistance.
Turkey expressed its willingness to offer assistance shortly after the earthquake and dispatched a team equipped with advanced drones to the affected areas, Chen said.
That was in return for Taiwan last year sending a search-and-rescue team to Turkey after a shallow, magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the country on Feb. 6, he added.
Taiwan’s and Turkey’s earthquake relief workers were able to capture images using drones of Taroko and Provincial Highway No. 8 connecting Hehuanshan and Tiansiang (天祥) in Taroko to help overcome the challenges faced by rescue missions in mountainous terrain, Chen said.
Meanwhile, after days of intensified efforts by state-owned Taiwan Power Co to fix the damaged electricity grid, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said that 327 households were still without power, including 309 in Tiansiang, Hualien, with power expected to be fully restored by 11 pm last night.
A total of 190 households in Taipei were still without natural gas, but supply is expected to be largely restored by tomorrow, the ministry said.
In addition, 43 base stations for mobile communications were still having technical problems, but these are expected to be fixed by Thursday, it said.
The Ministry of Agriculture said that as of 8am yesterday, the earthquake had caused NT$76.04 million (US$2.37 million) in agricultural losses, all in Hualien.
As of 8am yesterday, 236 people had been placed in shelters in Keelung, New Taipei City and Hualien, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said.
As of Sunday, more than NT$140 million from 95,442 individual donors had been received, it said.
The money is to be used as relief funds for earthquake victims, emergency medical expenses, the operation of shelters and reconstruction, it added.
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