(Reuters) — Over 800 soldiers searched for survivors in southern Taiwan after it was hit by a powerful earthquake of 6.4 magnitude that has killed at least eight people on Saturday (February 6).
Six of the dead were found in a 17-storey apartment building that collapsed, with five people still missing in the ruins of the complex as darkness fell.
One victim was a 10-day-old girl.
Footage from the Military News Agency under the Ministry of National Defense ROC showed soldiers pulling out a possible survivor.
The soldiers are equipped with some 20 life detectors, according to the Military News Agency’s website.
The earthquake took place around 4am (2000GMT), at the start of a Lunar New Year holiday.
Buildings in nine other locations in the city of 2 million people had collapsed and five were left tilting at alarming angles, a government emergency centre said.
But a fire department official said rescue efforts were focused 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.
Authorities said there were 96 apartment units and 256 people living in the collapsed building.