3 Thais injured in Taiwan quake as death toll rises

Chuchart Khamsommat, 29, Weeraphong Khaotrai, 37, and Thanakorn, 44, whose family name was unknown, suffered minor injuries to their heads and legs, Arak Prommanee, the director general of Employment Department, said last night.
Taiwanese Interior Minister Chen Wei-zen, who heads the Central Emergency Operation Centre, said all emergency crews would continue to search for survivors, state-run Central News Agency reported.
The death toll in the southern city of Tainan climbed to 26 and an estimated 500 people were injured, according to the emergency centre.
Nearly 100 victims were still being treated in hospitals and 124 people, including 29 children, remained missing, it reported.
President Ma Ying-jeou said at the emergency centre that the government would continue rescue operations and also focus on long-term reconstruction.
“In the wake of the deadly earthquake, we clearly know that we still have a lot to improve the public safety,” Ma said.
Most of the missing people were in the 17-storey apartment building that collapsed in the city’s Yungkang district.
Authorities suspect shoddy construction could be the reason the building did not hold up in the quake that struck at 3:57am (2:57am Bangkok time) on Saturday.
The search for survivors lasted through the night. A 14-year-old girl was rescued after being trapped under debris for 27 hours, the Apple Daily reported.
Emergency crews found signs of life in the rubble in the morning and successfully rescued six people from the collapsed building, the agency reported. A 32-year-old man was able to crawl out.
Tainan Mayor Lai Ching-te said search efforts had slowed because emergency crews had to carefully remove the rubble by hand, in order not to hurt possible survivors, Apple Daily reported. Lai arrived at the site with a Japanese team of volunteers, local media reported.
Lai said it was not easy to confirm the number of the missing and maybe more than 100 people were at the very bottom of the large collapsed residential complex.
“However, based on reports filed by residents, we now target 18 places for 63 residents trapped under rubble,” Lai was quoted as saying by Apple Daily.
Prime Minister Chang San-cheng also visited injured people in hospitals and expressed his condolences to the families of victims. The collapsed apartment building was home to about 250 people in 96 households, according to the emergency centre. But headcounts of survivors showed that more than 300 people were inside at the time of the quake.
The number of people in the building may have swelled ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, when families typically host guests or relatives from other areas.