At Least 5 Dead as 6.4-magnitude Quake Rocks Southern Taiwan

Local Editor

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked southern Taiwan, killing at least five people and injuring over 150 others in the Asian island nation.

The tremor, which struck the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan early Saturday, caused a number of buildings to collapse and left many people trapped under the rubble.
Officials in the city reported that emergency workers pulled out more than 220 people from rubble, with over 40 of them hospitalized.

For his part, Interior minister Chen Wei-jen said he feared there may be more people in the building than usual as family members would have returned to celebrate the Lunar New Year holidays next week.

Many more people are feared to be still trapped inside the collapsed buildings following the quake and its aftershocks.

The epicenter of the quake was 43 kilometers southeast of Tainan at a depth of 23 kilometers.

Taiwan lies in a seismically active area and is therefore prone to earthquakes, which mostly cause little or no damage.

Relatively, one of its worst-recorded quakes measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale occurred in September 1999. The tremor claimed 2,400 lives and ruined 50,000 buildings.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team