HUALIEN, TAIWAN – APRIL 06: A helicopter descends onto a car park carrying people rescued from the Taroko Gorge after they were trapped in the mountainous areas for nearly 3 days on April 06, 2024 in Hualien, Taiwan. There are still hundreds of victims stuck in the mountains after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Taiwan on Wednesday, April 3rd, triggering a tsunami warning for the coastline in Taiwan, The Philippines and Japan. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Rescuers were planning to bring in heavy equipment on April 6 to try to recover two bodies buried under boulders on a hiking trail, three days after Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in 25 years.

Four more people remain missing on the same Shakadang Trail in Taroko National Park, famed for its rugged mountainous terrain. Search and recovery work was set to resume, after being called off Friday afternoon because of aftershocks.

Also read | Rescuers search for people out of contact in Taiwan after strong earthquake

At least 12 people were killed by the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck Wednesday morning off Taiwan’s east coast, and 10 others were still missing.

More than 600 people, including about 450 at a hotel in the Taroko park, remained stranded in various locations cut off by rockslides and other damage.

Survivors have told harrowing tales of rocks tumbling onto roadways, trapping them in tunnels until rescuers arrived to free them. In the city of Hualien, a building left tilting over a street at a precarious angle was being carefully torn down.

The relatively low number of deaths from such a powerful quake has been attributed to strict construction standards and widespread public education campaigns on the earthquake-prone island.

In pictures | Taiwan rocked by strongest earthquake in nearly 25 years

This photo taken by Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) on April 3, 2024 shows Taiwan’s president-elect and current Vice-President Lai Ching-te (3rd R) surveying damage in Hualien, after a major earthquake hit Taiwan’s east.

In this photo released by the Taiwan Air Force Command, members of a search and rescue team prepare to deploy on a Taiwan Air Force C-130 from southern Taiwan’s Pingtung military air base en route for Hualien on on April 3, 2024.

In this photo released by the Hualien City Government, government workers and journalists are seen near firefighters working near a leaning building in the aftermath of an earthquake in Hualien, eastern Taiwan on April 3, 2024.

Firefighters work at the site where a building collapsed following the earthquake, in Hualien, Taiwan, in this handout provided by Taiwan’s National Fire Agency on April 3, 2024.

An area of a damaged hotel is cordoned off, following an earthquake in Hualien, Taiwan on April 3, 2024.

In this image taken from a video footage run by TVBS, residents rescue a child from a partially collapsed building in Hualien, eastern Taiwan on April 3, 2024.

This photo taken by Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) on April 3, 2024 shows people looking at a damaged building in Hualien, after a major earthquake hit Taiwan’s east.

In this image taken from a video footage run by TVBS, a partially collapsed building is seen in Hualien, eastern Taiwan on April 3, 2024.

This screengrab taken from video footage captured by an onlooker shows rockfall from a mountain near Kanan bridge in Hualien county on April 3, 2024 after a major earthquake hit Taiwan’s east.

This photo taken by Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) on April 3, 2024 shows emergency workers attending to a survivor, who had been trapped in a damaged building, in New Taipei City, after a major earthquake hit Taiwan’s east.

Passengers wait to board a south bound train as some train services were suspended in the aftermath of an earthquake in Taipei, Taiwan on April 3, 2024.

This photo taken by Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) on April 3, 2024 shows damage to buildings in Xindian district of New Taipei City, after a major earthquake hit Taiwan’s east.

This photo taken by Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) on April 3, 2024 shows a barricade erected around debris in the compound of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei after a major earthquake hit Taiwan’s east.

This photo taken by Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) on April 3, 2024 shows emergency workers working to locate survivors from a damaged building in New Taipei City, after a major earthquake hit Taiwan’s east.

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Debris surrounds a tilted building a day after a powerful earthquake struck, in Hualien City, eastern Taiwan, on April 4, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Rescuers searched for dozens of people out of contact on April 4, a day after Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in a quarter century damaged buildings, caused multiple rockslides and killed nine people.

In the eastern coastal city of Hualien near the epicentre, workers used an excavator to put construction materials around the base of a damaged building to stabilise it and prevent a collapse. Mayor Hsu Chen-wei previously said 48 residential buildings were damaged. Some of the damaged buildings tilted at precarious angles with their ground floors crushed.

More than 1,000 people were injured in the quake that struck on Wednesday morning. Of the nine dead, at least four were struck inside Taroko National Park, a tourist attraction famous for its scenes of canyons and cliffs in Hualien County, about 150 km (90 miles) from the island’s capital Taipei.

“Nearly 150 people were either still trapped or out of contact on April 4,” the National Fire Agency said.

About two dozen tourists and some others were stranded in the park. The Health and Welfare Ministry said 64 others were workers at a rock quarry. Six workers from another quarry were airlifted from the area where access was cut off because roads were damaged by falling rocks.

Several people, including six university students, were also reported to be trapped. Around 50 people, mostly employees at the hotel earlier reported to be in the national park, were out of contact with authorities.

For hours after the quake, TV showed neighbours and rescue workers lifting residents through windows and onto the street from damaged buildings where the shaking had fused shut the doors. It wasn’t clear on Thursday morning if any people were trapped in the damaged buildings.

The temblor and aftershocks caused many landslides and damaged roads, bridges and tunnels. The national legislature and sections of Taipei’s main airport had minor damage.

Taiwan measured the initial quake’s strength as 7.2 magnitude while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.4. The Central Weather Administration has recorded more than 300 aftershocks from Wednesday morning into Thursday.

Taiwan is regularly jolted by earthquakes and its population is among the best prepared for them. It also had stringent construction requirements to ensure buildings are quake-resistant.

The economic losses caused by the quake are still unclear. The self-ruled island is the leading manufacturer of the world’s most sophisticated computer chips and other high-technology items that are sensitive to seismic events.

Hualien was last struck by a deadly quake in 2018 that killed 17 people and brought down a historic hotel. Taiwan’s worst recent quake on September 21, 1999, a magnitude of 7.7 temblor, caused 2,400 deaths, injuring around 1,00,000 and destroying thousands of buildings.