According to Taiwan’s Emergency Operations Centre, there was one fatality and nine minor injuries.
On Sunday, a powerful earthquake shook much of Taiwan, toppling a three-story building with four people temporarily trapped inside, stranding about 400 tourists on a mountainside, and derailing a portion of a passenger train.
The magnitude 6.8 earthquake was the largest of dozens that have shaken the southeastern coast of the island since Saturday evening when a magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck the same region.
Most of the damage appeared to be north of the epicenter, which Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau reported was 7 kilometers beneath the town of Chishang (4 miles).
In nearby Yuli town, a worker from a cement factory died, and a three-story building with a 7-11 stores on the ground floor and apartments above it collapsed, according to the island’s Central News Agency.
The building’s 70-year-old owner and his wife were rescued first, followed by a 39-year-old woman and her 5-year-old daughter.
A photograph released by the city of Hualien depicted a girl lying on a blanket while orange-uniformed rescue workers with helmets handed her a metal ladder from the top of the debris.
The top two stories of the building were strewn across a small street and onto the opposite side, along with electricity wires that had been brought down by the collapse.
There were over 7,000 households without power in Yuli, and water mains were also damaged. At the Mount Carmel Presbyterian Church, bookshelves and musical instruments fell over, and a long crack ran along the floor. Outside, the pavement was broken up into concrete slabs.
According to media reports, police and firefighters responded to a bridge collapse on a two-lane road in a rural area of the same town, where three people and one or more vehicles may have fallen off.
According to the Central News Agency, a landslide in Yuli trapped nearly 400 tourists on a mountain known for the orange daylilies that blanket its slopes at this time of year. They were without electricity and had a weak mobile phone signal.
The Central News Agency reported, citing the railway administration, that debris from a falling canopy on a platform at Dongli station in Fuli town, which is between Yuli and the epicenter at Chishang, derailed six cars of a passing train. The 20 passengers sustained no injuries.
The shaking was felt in Taipei, the island’s capital, at its northernmost point. A man on the fifth floor of a sports center in Taoyuan city, west of Taipei and 210 kilometers (130 miles) north of the epicenter, was injured by a ceiling collapse.
The Japan Meteorological Agency initially issued a tsunami warning for a number of southern Japanese islands near Taiwan, but later retracted it.
