More than 2,000 households in Taitung and Hualien counties still have no running water, in the wake of a series of earthquakes last weekend that caused widespread damage in Taiwan, the Central Emergency Operation Center (CEOC) said Tuesday.
During the quakes, 4,842 households lost their water supply due mainly to damaged pipelines, and as of Tuesday morning 2,027 of them had not yet been reconnected, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said during a CEOC task force meeting.
The ministry said, however, that it was working to ensure the resumption of water supply to the 2,027 households by midnight Tuesday, while electricity had been fully restored to the 22,024 households that had lost power during the quakes.
From Sunday to Tuesday morning, more than 160 discernible earthquakes were recorded in Taitung, most of them centered in the county’s Chishang Township, causing damage to buildings and infrastructure.
The most powerful one occurred Sunday at 2:44 p.m., registering 6.8 on the Richter scale, hours after a magnitude 6.4 quake, centered in Taitung’s Guanshan Township, rocked Taiwan on Saturday night, according to the Central Weather Bureau.
The quakes claimed one life, and left 168 people injured, the CEOC said in a statement, citing a toll valid as of 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The one fatality recorded to date was a man surnamed Huang (黃), who died when a piece of machinery fell on him during the magnitude 6.8 quake, at a ready-mix cement factory where he worked in Yuli Township, Hualien, according to the CEOC.
The temblors also resulted in derailed trains, twisted railway tracks, rock slides, and collapsed bridges and buildings, the CEOC said after its task force meeting, adding that most of the damage was in Hualien and Taitung.
As of Tuesday, three sections of the railway tracks between Yuli and Dongli Stations in Hualien that were uprooted during the quakes were still under repairs, according to the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA).
In addition, trains were still unable to travel between Hualien and Taitung due to damaged rails and bridges along the route, TRA said, adding that it was providing bus services on that route in the meantime.
Elsewhere in transportation network, a section of the Southern Cross-Island Highway, between Kaohsiung’s Meishan and Taitung’s Xiangyang areas, was expected to be reopened later Tuesday, after days of closure due to landslides during the quakes, the CEOC said.
Meanwhile, as of 9 a.m. Tuesday, 33 buildings in Taitung and 10 in Hualien had been deemed dangerous, following a damage evaluation after the quakes, the Construction and Planning Agency said.
The series of earthquakes on the weekend caused an estimated NT$127.28 million (US$4.05 million) in damage to 594 schools around Taiwan, with those in the southernmost county of Pingtung suffering the heaviest damage, estimated at NT$21.97 million, the Ministry of Education said.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel