President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday paid another visit to areas of Hualien that were devastated by Tuesday’s earthquake and ate dinner with evacuated residents temporarily being sheltered in the county’s indoor stadium, where the president also planned to stay overnight.
The president continued to command units responding at collapsed building sites and stopped at an ad hoc command center for the rescue effort at the Yun Men Tsui Ti (雲門翠堤大樓) commercial and residential complex for a briefing, before a late afternoon visit at an elementary school, that has been turned into a temporary evacuation shelter.
In the evening, Tsai visited the Hualien County Stadium, which is also being used as a temporary shelter.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Tsai had dinner at the stadium and expressed her concerns over the plight of Hualien residents whose lives have been disrupted, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said.
Tsai received updates from Ministry of National Defense Deputy Chief of Staff Chen Pao-yu (陳寶餘), who is heading the military’s disaster relief efforts in Hualien, on the number of casualties and the still missing and on the telecommunications situation in Hualien, Huang said.
The president promised to deploy machinery to tear down unstable and collapsed buildings and requested that the military provide hot showers, meals and warm clothing for search-and-rescue teams and by earthquake victims, Huang added.
Tsai is extremely concerned about the progress of search and rescue efforts, Huang said.
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