TAINAN, Taiwan — Res cuers were searching late Saturday for more than 100 people still missing after a powerful, shallow earthquake struck southern Taiwan before dawn, causing a high-rise residential building to collapse and killing at least 18 people and injuring hundreds.
More than 340 people were rescued from the rubble in Tainan, the city hit worst by the quake. About 2,000 firefighters and soldiers scrambled with ladders, cranes and other equipment to the ruins of the 17-floor residential building, which folded like an accordion onto its side after the quake struck.
The spectacular fall of the building immediately raised questions about its construction, and Taiwan’s interior minister said there would be an investigation.
The official Central News Agency reported that the quake killed 14 people and injured 484 others, according to statistics by Taiwan’s rescue authorities. Most of the injured have been released from hospitals by Saturday night.
CNA said 153 people remained missing and that rescuers were racing to find them.
Taiwan’s SETV reported that 101 adults and 41 children were missing. The number of missing was expected to drop because some of those listed might have been listed twice, hospitalized or not, in the building at the time of the quake.
President Ma Ying-jeou visited a hospital and the emergency response center in Tainan before rushing back to the capital, Taipei, to attend a briefing on the situation.
Rescuer Jian Zhengshun said the rescue work was difficult because part of the high-rise building was believed to be buried underground, with the quake loosening the earth. He said rescuers had to clear rubble for passages to reach people who were trapped.
The quake came two days before the start of Lunar New Year celebrations that mark the most important family holiday in the Chinese calendar.
The collapsed building had 256 registered residents, but far more people could have been inside when it fell because the population might have swelled ahead of the holiday, when families typically host guests.
Local media said the building included a care center for newborns and mothers, and a newborn was among those confirmed dead in the disaster.
Most people were asleep when the magnitude 6.4 earthquake hit at about 4 a.m., 22 miles southeast of Yujing. It struck only 6 miles underground, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Shallow earthquakes generally cause more damage than deeper ones.
Tainan resident Lin Bao-gui, a secondhand car salesman whose cars were smashed when the building collapsed across the street from him, said his house first started “shaking horizontally, then up and down, then a big shake right to left.”
“I stayed in my bed but jumped up when I heard a big bang, which was the sound of the building falling,” he said.
Authorities in Tainan said that of the 14 people killed in the quake, 11 were found at the ruins of the fallen building.
