Workers rush to stabilize and shore up damaged buildings in Taiwan after strong earthquake

Some buildings tilted at precarious angles in the mountainous, sparsely populated county of Hualien, near the epicentre of the 7.2 magnitude quake, which struck just offshore at about 8 am on Wednesday and triggered massive landslides.

Scores of emergency workers were trying to shore up damaged buildings and demolish those deemed impossible to save after the quake.

“The Uranus building behind us is a very badly damaged place. It is a building with one basement level and nine floors above ground. The first and second floors are now underground,” Deputy Acting Chief of Hualien Fire Department Lee Lung-Sheng said.

Workers used an excavator to stabilize the base of the damaged Uranus Building with construction materials, as some officers took samples of its exterior and chickens browsed amid potted plants on its slanted roof.

The building will be demolished in the next two days.

Hualien city mayor Hsu Chen-Wei said all residents and businesses in buildings that were in a dangerous state had been evacuated.

Demolition work was beginning on four buildings, the mayor added.

She previously said 48 residential buildings had been damaged, some of which were tilting at precarious angles with their ground floors crushed.

More than 50 aftershocks were recorded, weather officials said.

The biggest earthquake in Taiwan in at least 25 years killed nine people and injured more than 900, while 50 workers traveling in minibusses to a hotel in a national park were missing.