TAIWAN EARTHQUAKE

September 21, 1999
		News reports from Taiwan indicate the death toll is rising and thousands remain trapped in damage left behind by the Tuesday's earthquake. Frantic rescue efforts continue. -- Posted 5:03 PM ET

Online NewsHour Special Report: Earthquake in Turkey Aug. 24, 1999: The U.S. Ambassador to Turkey discusses the relief effort. Aug. 23, 1999: Public health officials discuss the danger of disease Aug. 20, 1999: Aftershocks rock Turkey Aug. 20, 1999: The death toll surpasses 10,000 Aug. 19, 1999: A search for survivors in Turkey The Online NewsHour's coverage of Asia.     Taiwain Economic and Cultural Office in New York	The mounting death toll from Taiwan's biggest earthquake in a decade has soared past 1,700 today as workers continue to sift through rubble. The quake hit at 1:45am Tuesday morning local time, while most of the island's 22 million people were sleeping. High rise buildings collapsed near the quake's epicenter -- about 90 miles south of Taipei -- in Taichung and nearby Nantou Counties, where wire services report about half the fatalities occurred. The area has experienced a development boom in recent years, and many fear shoddy construction might have caused buildings there to collapse. One distraught woman told local television her parents were trapped in an apartment building. "I don't know what happened to my dad and mom," the sobbing survivor said. "We live in different rooms. I haven't seen them." In Nantou County, 100,000 are homeless and thousands are believed trapped. One 81-year-old survivor said he "crawled like a mouse" through the rubble of his ninth-floor apartment to his balcony, where rescuers pulled him to safety. "You can't imagine how terrible it was," said the man. Preliminary geological reports place the quake's magnitude at 7.6, equal to the tremor that killed 15,000 in Turkey last month. Chinese President Jiang Zemin extended condolences and offered aid to quake victims, even though relations between China and Taiwan remain tense. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province. In addition, China's Red Cross said it would provide $100,000 in disaster aid and $60,000 in relief supplies to the island. The quake "hurt the hearts of the people on the mainland as the Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are as closely linked as flesh and blood," China's state-run Xinhua News agency reported in a paraphrase of Jiang's remarks. Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne, in Taiwan on an Asian trade mission, was sleeping in the Grant Hyatt Regency in Taipei when the quake hit. Kempthorne, who was not injured, said the quake began as a gentle swaying, "and then it increased in intensity until you were virtually thrown from the bed."