Domestic News

Source: Xinhua

Date: 13/02/16

The death toll from an earthquake that struck southern Taiwan on Feb. 6 stood at 116 by Saturday (Feb. 13), and the search and rescue work has come to an end.

The 6.7-magnitude quake hit Kaohsiung City at a depth of 15km at 3:57am on Feb. 6, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center. Local monitoring authority put the scale at 6.4-magnitude.

The city of Tainan bore the brunt of the quake, especially a 16-storey apartment building built in 1992 in the Yongkang district. The U-shaped Weiguan Jinlong building fell down toward a road on its east seconds after the quake, accounting for 114 deaths, among 289 taken out of the building by rescuers, according to an official update on the casualties.

At the time, the Weiguan Jinlong was crammed with more than 380 people, including many relatives of residents. Many families rent apartments there as the building was next to a popular primary school. Among the deceased, more than 30 people were under 16 years old.

Lin Ming-hui, developer of the Weiguan Jinlong building, was arrested on suspicion of negligent homicide, along with two other men from his management team. At the scene of the collapsed building, many rectangular commercial cans can be seen inside the walls exposed by the quake, apparently having been used as building material. Polystyrene was also found to be mixed in with concrete.

After the quake, local authorities started to evaluate damaged buildings reported by residents in Tainan. More than 120 buildings were considered as not suitable for people to live in. Some of them must be dismantled, while others have to be consolidated.