Rescue efforts are still under way in Taiwan’s Taroko national park to find two missing Australian nationals, who have not been seen for six days after a massive earthquake hit the island.
The couple, identified by local government officials as Neo Siew Choo and Sim Hwee Kok, went missing after the 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the island at 7.58am on Wednesday.
The quake, Taiwan’s largest in 25 years, has left 13 confirmed dead and more than 1,100 injured.
Taiwan’s eastern Hualien county, which lies only kilometres away from the epicentre of the quake, was particularly hard hit.
Rescue efforts initially focused on people trapped within collapsed buildings in Hualien city but have since moved to the surrounding Taroko national park, where the earthquake triggered significant landslides.
While 33 people remain trapped but accounted for within the park, five are still thought to be missing, including three Taiwanese nationals.
Rescue services have now narrowed down their search to the Shakadang trail, a popular tourist hiking route in the mountains of the national park, according to Jian Hong-cheng, director of the Hualien county fire department’s rescue operation.
CCTV footage shows the couple, who are also Singaporean passport holders, alighting from a bus near the trailhead. Another video, shared with the Guardian by a German tourist, shows the couple beginning their hike about 500 metres down the path, just 25 minutes before the quake struck.
“So far, we have been unable to locate them,” Jian said.
But a spot about 800 metres along the trail had been identified as an area of interest for the search.
With rubble and rocks filling the gorge that the Shakadang trail snakes along, rescue workers are struggling to make progress.
“There is no way for us to cut through the rock by hand and so we have to wait for the excavator to arrive,” Jian said. “But at the moment, the route is blocked by large boulders.”
With more than 785 aftershocks recorded in the region since Wednesday and more still being felt, rescue operations may continue to be hampered by the risk of further landslides.
“We are still constantly experiencing intense aftershocks,” Jian said. “This is the greatest risk to the workers carrying out the rescue. It’s very dangerous.”
The situation could also be made worse by a turn in the weather. “Because of the heavy rain in the afternoon, we could only carry out the search and rescue operation between this morning and midday,” he said.
As emergency services begin their sixth day of operations, and with downpours forecast to continue throughout the coming days, the rescue is turning into a race against time.
“A normal person who is trapped in this environment has little chance of survival after seven days,” Jian said. “Things are moving towards a point where we are becoming less optimistic.”
• Additional reporting by Kenza Wilks
• This article and subheading were amended on 10 April to remove a description of the Shakadang trail as “mountainous”.
