Rescuers are searching for dozens of people still missing a day after Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in a quarter of a century damaged buildings, killed 10 people and left others stranded in remote areas.
In the eastern coastal city of Hualien near the epicentre, workers used an excavator to stabilise the base of a damaged building with construction materials as officials took samples of its exterior and chickens pecked among potted plants on its slanted roof.
Mayor Hsu Chen-wei said 48 residential buildings were damaged in Wednesday’s quake, some of which were tilting at precarious angles with their ground floors crushed.
Some Hualien residents were staying in tents, and the main road linking the county to the capital Taipei was still closed on Thursday afternoon, but much of Taiwan’s day-to-day life was returning to normal.
Taiwan is regularly jolted by earthquakes and its population is well prepared for them.
It also has stringent construction requirements to ensure buildings are quake resistant.
Of the 10 dead, at least four were killed inside Taroko National Park, a Hualien county tourist attraction famous for canyons and cliffs about 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Taipei.
One person was found dead in a damaged building, and another was found in the Ho Ren Quarry. Authorities also retrieved a body from a trail.
According to the the National Fire Agency, about 700 people were either still missing or stranded on Thursday, including more than 600 who were stranded inside a hotel called Silks Place Taroko.
Others who were reported to be stranded, including two dozen tourists, about 20 campers and six university students, were also safe, they said.
After the quake, local television showed neighbours and rescue workers lifting residents through windows and on to the street from damaged buildings where the shaking had jammed doors shut.
The quake and its aftershocks caused landslides and damaged roads, bridges and tunnels.
The earthquake was the strongest to hit Taiwan in 25 years.
Hualien was last struck by a deadly quake in 2018 which killed 17 people and brought down a historic hotel.
Taiwan’s worst recent earthquake struck on September 21 1999, a magnitude 7.7 quake that caused 2,400 deaths, injured around 100,000 people and destroyed thousands of buildings.
