Taiwan earthquake: Death toll climbs to 114 as rescue efforts end

Death toll at an apartment building that collapsed from a 6.4 magnitude earthquake last week reaches 114, authorities investigating workmanship used to construct building

The death toll at a building that collapsed from a 6.4 magnitude earthquake that struck southern Taiwan reached 114 as rescue efforts came to an end on Saturday, a week after the tremor hit.

“The search and rescue has come to an end,” said Tainan Mayor William Lai, identifying the last individual to be pulled out from the rubble as Hsieh Chen-yu, who was part of the fallen building's management committee.

The 6.4-magnitude quake struck at early dawn on Feb. 6 at the beginning of the Lunar New Year holiday, with almost all of the dead found in Tainan's toppled Wei-guan Golden Dragon Building.

The earthquake initially killed 23 people but the death toll increased to 114 as rescuers scrambled to recover bodies from beneath the rubble of the building. Two other people died elsewhere in the city.

Rescue work has focused on the wreckage of the 17-storey building. The building had 256 registered residents but when more than that number were pulled out in the initial days after the quake, it became clear more people were in the building when it toppled.

Of a total 289 people pulled out, 175 were alive with 96 of them taken to the hospital, Lai said.

No survivors had been brought out since Monday evening, when more than 100 were still reported missing.

The apartment block was the only major high-rise building in the city of two million people to have completely collapsed. Its lower floors, filled with arcades of shops, pancaked on top of each other in the 6.4 magnitude quake and then the whole structure toppled, raising immediate questions about the quality of materials and workmanship used in its construction in the 1990s.

Liu Shih-chung, Tainan city government deputy secretary general, said television footage of its ruins suggested the possibility of structural problems related to poor-quality reinforced steel and cement.

Local authorities are investigating the reasons for the building's collapse and earlier this week took into custody three individuals, including the developer of the Wei-guan Golden Dragon Building, on suspicion of professional negligent homicide.

No one has yet been formally charged.