Fruit, flowers and incense paper were laid on a table yesterday, as authorities prepared a ceremony before demolishing a precariously tilting building that has become a symbol of Taiwan’s biggest quake in 25 years.
The glass-fronted Uranus building in Hualien is a 10-story mix of shops and apartments that has stood for about 40 years.
Wednesday’s earthquake, which Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring center measured at magnitude 7.2, while the US Geological Service put it at 7.4, caused it to tilt at a 45-degree angle, its twisted exterior becoming one of the most recognizable images to emerge from the disaster.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
By yesterday, authorities said they would start taking it apart, first preparing a table of offerings in front of the building to ensure a smooth demolition and to “soothe the lost souls” of those killed in the quake.
Chips, instant noodles, bottles of soda and folded piles of paper money for the dead were set alongside baskets of flowers and a container holding incense sticks.
“[We] offer sacrifices and pray for blessing for the demolition work of the Uranus building,” an announcer said over a loudspeaker.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
Traditional cultural rites like blessing a new home or providing offerings to spirits after buying land are commonplace in Taiwan.
Hualien County Commissioner Hsu Chen-wei (徐榛蔚) and other officials wearing construction vests each lit a joss stick and bowed to the building.
“The Uranus was built in 1986. All structures age due to time, earthquakes and many other conditions,” she told reporters.
Photo: Tyrone Siu, REUTERS
“We hope to complete the demolition within two weeks so Hualien people can return to their regular lives,” Hsu said.
Workers then began using a pink crane to smash the glass windows covering the building’s exterior, revealing the inner brick facade as rain started to drizzle.
By about 1pm, a severe aftershock hit the city, alarming the construction team as the building appeared to lean more perilously forward.
Accelerating the process, workers began inserting giant metal bars to stabilize the structure.
Inside an exposed upper-story floor, a piano could be seen lying on its side, surrounded by debris from an apartment damaged by the massive tremor.
So far, at least 12 people are known to have died from the quake, with more than 1,100 injured, although authorities have not specified the severity of the injuries.
Hundreds remain stranded around Taroko National Park, some in a hostel, others in a luxury hotel, on local hiking trails and a school cut off by landslides.
A network of tunnels traverses the region, with key roads leading to the park now blocked by falling rocks. Rescue teams have been mobilized from all over Taiwan to look for those still missing.
“Rescuers are not giving up, as the search continues in the mountains for earthquake survivors,” vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said, calling them the “true heroes of a resilient Taiwan.”
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its