<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Rescuers freed nine people trapped in a winding cave in Taiwan’s mountainous east today while locating two others who were feared dead, as they searched for those still missing after the island’s biggest earthquake in 25 years.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The official death toll from Wednesday’s magnitude-7.4 quake still stood at 10, but the government in the hardest-hit area of Hualien county said two more people on a hiking trail were found with “no signs of life”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Crushed by a landslide, the two people were buried deep beneath massive boulders, making it difficult for workers to get to them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Their bodies have been found, but they have not been excavated yet. We will add them to the death toll after they are excavated and identified,” said interior minister Lin Yu-chang.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hundreds more were still stranded around the mountains that flank the county today, with roads blocked off by landslides and rockfalls. However, most were known to be safe as rescuers deployed helicopters, drones, and smaller teams with dogs to reach them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rescuers had found nine people alive in a cave popular with tourists called the Tunnel of Nine Turns today.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lin said that progress was “ahead of schedule”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“There are still aftershocks and rocks falling but in a very short period of about five hours today, we have managed to repair 10 kilometres of roads,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the main city of Hualien, authorities allowed residents to enter a building with a crumbling facade at 15-minute intervals so that they could retrieve their belongings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some opted to throw mattresses and bags of clothing out the window, while a young mother slowly carried a cot out for her 10-month-old baby.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We are told the building has become dangerous and there probably won’t be another chance to move our things afterwards,” said the 24-year-old woman surnamed Chen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“During the big quake…I was only thinking about protecting my baby at the time,” she said. “I didn’t expect it to be so serious and the structure below has become like that.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ten minutes away, workers started demolishing a building named Uranus – tilting at a 45° angle after half its first floor pancaked – by first using a pink crane to smash its glass windows.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The plan was to slowly take it apart – a process that could take two weeks – but an aftershock around 1pm local time alarmed the construction team as the building appeared to lean more perilously forward.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As rain drizzled across the city, workers accelerated the process, inserting giant metal bars to stabilise the structure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Next to Uranus, a digital sign on another building blared, “Don’t give up! Hualien add oil!” – using a Chinese expression of support.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The national disaster agency said 10 people had been killed and 1,123 injured – though the severity of the wounded was not specified.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More than 630 were stranded but accounted for, while authorities had lost contact with 13. - AFP </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/fas</div>