A Taiwanese woman trapped in a collapsed hotel in Myanmar following a magnitude 7.7 earthquake on Friday last week is believed to be dead, a Taiwanese businessman based in the Southeast Asian country said today.
A rescue team with search-and-rescue dogs and life detectors found no signs of life in the collapsed Great Wall Hotel Mandalay yesterday afternoon, Myanmar Taiwan Business Association secretary-general Lo Chen-hua (羅振華) said.
Photo: Reuters
This led to the belief that one of the people trapped in the hotel, a Taiwanese citizen identified as the wife of a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林), is dead, Lo said.
The Lins arrived in Mandalay a few days ago as tourists and were staying at the Great Wall Hotel during their visit, Lo said.
Lin was more fortunate when the earthquake struck at 12:50pm on Friday, as he was standing near the hotel's main entrance and was able to escape, sustaining only minor injuries to his arms and head during the process, Lo said.
However, Lin's wife was trapped with a number of hotel staffers on the ground floor after the building partially collapsed, Lo said.
For a day or two Lin was able to communicate with his wife via one of the trapped staffer's walkie talkie, Lo said.
Lin said that the rescuers are now trying to locate the bodies of deceased.
If they are able to find the Taiwanese, her body is to be moved to a nearby overseas Taiwanese convention center in Mandalay.
Her body would cremated before returning to Taiwan with her husband, he said.
Meanwhile, a Taiwanese diplomat based in Yangon finally arrived in Mandalay last night and visited the collapsed hotel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in Taipei.
Traffic to Mandalay, about 620km north of Yangon, was obstructed due to damaged roads after the strong earthquake, the ministry said.
Upon arrival, the diplomat was told that the trapped woman had no vital signs, it said in a statement.
The diplomat expressed the government's condolences to Lin.
Representative to Myanmar Chou Chung-hsing (周中興) also telephoned Lin and pledged that the government would help him deal with the aftermath of his wife's death, the ministry said.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to