A strong earthquake shook much of Taiwan on Sunday, toppling a three-storey building and temporarily trapping four people inside, stranding about 400 tourists on a mountainside and knocking part of a passenger train off its tracks.
The magnitude 6.8 quake was the largest among dozens that have rattled the island’s south-eastern coast since Saturday evening, when a 6.4 quake struck the same area. There were no immediate reports of serious injuries.
Most of the damage appeared to be north of the epicentre, which Taiwan‘s central weather bureau said was in the town of Chishang at the relatively shallow depth of four miles.
The three-storey building, which had a 7-11 convenience store on the ground floor and residences on the upper ones, collapsed in the nearby town of Yuli, the island’s Central News Agency said. More than 7,000 households were reported without power in Yuli and water pipes were also damaged.
Police and firefighters rushed to a bridge collapse on a two-lane road in what appeared to be a rural part of the same town, where three people and one or more vehicles may have fallen off, according to media reports.
Also in Yuli, a landslide trapped nearly 400 tourists on a mountain famous for the orange day lilies that blanket its slopes this time of year, the Central News Agency said. They had no electricity and a weak mobile phone signal.
Debris from a falling canopy on a platform at Dongli station in Fuli, between Yuli and the epicentre at Chishang, hit a passing train, derailing six cars, the Central News Agency said, citing the railway administration. None of the 20 passengers were injured.
The shaking was felt at the north end of the island in the capital, Taipei. In the city of Taoyuan, west of Taipei and 130 miles north of the epicentre, a man was injured by a ceiling collapse on the fifth floor of a sports centre.
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