A 10-MONTH-OLD baby was among five dead after a 16-storey tower block was toppled by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake in southern Taiwan on Saturday, with rescuers battling to free residents still trapped inside.
The Tainan city emergency response center still lists 155 people as injured, but the news website ET Today is reporting the number has climbed to 318 people hospitalized.
Officials said four buildings collapsed in the quake which struck the island in the early hours of the morning, but rescue efforts are centring on the tower block that tumbled onto its side.
Firefighters pulled survivors from the twisted concrete, trying to access apartments through windows and scaling the rubble with ladders.The baby, a man and a woman were pulled dead from the block, officials said, with 29 residents taken to hospital.
“These three people showed no signs of life before they were sent to the hospital,” said Lin Kuan-cheng, spokesman for the National Fire AgencyMore than 100 residents have now been freed from the rubble, with local media reporting the tower contained more than 200 homes.
Officials were unable to give an estimate of how many were still trapped as they scoured the building.
As dawn broke, live Taiwanese TV showed survivors being brought gingerly from the building, including an elderly woman in a neck brace and others wrapped in blankets.

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