TAINAN, TAIWAN, REUTERS, Feb 6, 2016–  A powerful earthquake toppled a 17-story apartment building in southern Taiwan on Saturday, killing at least five people, including a 10-day-old girl, and triggering frantic efforts to rescue about 35 people feared trapped inside.
The baby and three of the other dead were from an apartment complex where the floors of a tower block pancaked down onto to each other when the 6.4 magnitude tremor hit at around 4 a.m. (3.00 p.m. ET), at the start of a Lunar New Year holiday.
Rescuers mounted hydraulic ladders and a crane to scour the wreckage, plucking 221 survivors to safety so far, with dozens taken to hospital, a fire brigade official said.
Elsewhere in the city of 2 million people, several buildings tilted at alarming angles but a fire department official said rescue efforts were now focused entirely on the apartment block, where a child’s clothes fluttered from a first-floor laundry line and the smell of leaking gas hung in the air.
“I was watching TV and after a sudden burst of shaking, I heard a boom. I opened my metal door and saw the building opposite fall down,” said a 71-year-old neighbor who gave his name as Chang.
The quake was centered 43 km (27 miles) southeast of Tainan, at a depth of 23 km (14 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said. Several aftershocks shook Tainan, Taiwan’s weather bureau said.
Authorities said there were 92 households and 256 people living in the collapsed apartment building, but they did not know how many were actually there when the quake struck.
The fire department said 115 people had been taken to hospital from around Tainan.
SEVERAL BUILDINGS DAMAGED
Tainan mayor William Lai said it was too early to say if shoddy construction was responsible for the devastation at the apartment complex with the 17-storey tower which collapsed.
“We will chase the legal responsibility later,” he told reporters.
President Ma Ying-jeou visited an emergency center and hospital in Tainan while President-elect Tsai Ing-wen canceled appointments to help coordinate rescue efforts.
The quake initially cut power to 168,000 households in Tainan, many of whose residents lived through a massive 1999 tremor that killed about 2,400 people. Later, utility Taipower said power had been restored to all but about 900 households.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) (2330.TW), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said some of its wafers made in Tainan had been damaged and some customers might be affected, though first-quarter shipments remained on track.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said 810 soldiers had been mobilized for rescue efforts.
Authorities said cracks had been found in a dam but there was no immediate danger. Some bullet train services were suspended to the south as track inspections were carried out, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp said in a statement.