Brazilian Helena Wang, 38, was tidying up her apartment, on the second floor of a four-story building in Hualien, in eastern Taiwan, when the tremor began that left at least nine dead and 800 injured on the island this Wednesday morning. (3) —Tuesday night in Brazil.
“I ran desperately, because I’ve never seen it so strong,” he says. “Things started to fall here at home, the windows started to break. I left so desperate that I didn’t even take slippers. Barefoot, almost rolling down the stairs, because I was moving so much back and forth on the steps.”
Married to a Taiwanese man, Wang has lived for three years in Hualien, the city hardest hit by the two earthquakes of magnitude 7.5 and 6.5, according to Gdacs (an acronym in English for Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System) , a body linked to the European Commission and the UN.
The Brazilian had just dropped off her 11-year-old daughter at school and returned home to the city center. She says she has never experienced anything like this since she moved to Taiwan. She didn’t go to work this Wednesday, at a hotel, but friends sent photos of broken TV sets on the floor and tiles scattered throughout the hallways.
Classes were suspended and a friend brought her daughter home. But the tremors continued throughout Wednesday. “After the first earthquake, there was a pause, then there was another, and there are still several,” she says.
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The intensity of the two earthquakes was also unprecedented for Brazil’s representative in the Asian country, Miguel Magalhães. “It was terrifying,” he says. “In my 40 years of diplomacy, I have never seen an earthquake like this. We live on the 14th floor, it shakes a lot more,” he says.
“The earthquake was close to the surface and shallow. It was felt throughout Taiwan and the islands. (…) It was the strongest in 25 years”, says Wu Chien-fu, director of the Taiwanese Seismological Center. According to local authorities, at least nine people died and more than 800 were injured.
In Magalhães’ apartment, the tremor destroyed a bookshelf. According to him, the office in Taiwan has very close contact with the Brazilian community through a citizens council and a social media group. “We already have news that no one has been injured or killed,” he reports, saying that the information even came from Brazilians in Hualien.
The earthquake prompted Japan, the Philippines and mainland China to issue tsunami warnings that were canceled hours later. Reports collected by the Reuters news agency indicate that part of Taipei, the capital, was left without electricity.
Local media outlets broadcast images of toppled buildings in the southern county of Hualien and said people were trapped under the rubble. In mainland China, the earthquake was felt in several regions, including Shanghai. The most affected province was Fujian, opposite the island of Taiwan, with reports mainly from the cities of Xiamen and Fuzhou.
Brazilian son of Taiwanese parents James Chuang, who has lived in Taipei for 12 years and provides advice to other Brazilians, says that the earthquake was sudden and had already started with great force. He says he had just made breakfast and was at the counter when he felt something different.
“I’ve caught several, but this was the strongest,” he says. “As we are already instructed, the first thing was to open the doors, because if the building has any structural damage, you can’t do it anymore. Then I went to see if the gas or water pipes had burst. The tap fell and remained open. They started falling things, decorations, collection cans.”
Chuabg also says that he did not run to the elevator despite hearing alarms in the building.
“It was shaking a lot and the elevator could get stuck,” he says. “The condominium where I live is newer and already follows the laws that require buildings to withstand more than eight points on the Richter scale. I stayed inside until it stopped shaking and then got down.”
