Quake-Hit Taiwan Digs Out From the Rubble : Disaster: Death toll tops 1,700, while 2,700 are believed trapped. Epicenter area is isolated by fallen bridge.

TAIPEI, Taiwan —  The death toll from Taiwan’s devastating earthquake rose to 1,712 early today as authorities searched for survivors amid the rubble of buildings left leaning at precarious angles, including one with eight of its dozen floors smashed together in a death grip.

More than 24 hours after the magnitude 7.6 quake violently awakened many of this island’s 22 million residents, about 2,700 people were believed to be trapped in the rubble and more than 4,000 were injured.

Rescue efforts in one of the island’s hardest-hit areas--the mountainous Nantou County epicenter, about 90 miles south of Taipei--were hampered by the destruction of a bridge, which for the most part left relief efforts dependent on helicopters.

In an exchange beamed to rescue coordinators here via a live satellite feed from the landlocked county, an increasingly agitated senior official implored them to somehow transport heavy construction equipment to the region, along with refrigerated containers needed to store hundreds of corpses.

“We need them immediately,” Deputy Interior Minister Lin C. S. told the rescue coordinators buzzing about the 10th floor of the Fire Administration Building in downtown Taipei late Tuesday night.

Some reports said more than 100,000 people were left homeless by the quake.

As devastating as the temblor was, officials believed that the casualty count will not escalate as high as that from the Aug. 17 quake that killed at least 16,000 people in northwestern Turkey. The epicenter in the Taiwan quake was in a relatively rural area; Turkey’s catastrophe was centered in an urban region. Plus, nearly everyone in this quake is accounted for.

But more than 2,000 aftershocks, including one early this morning that registered a terrifying magnitude 6.8, continued to rattle Taiwan. And residents were warned that tsunamis still could strike along the island’s shores.

Rescue crews from the United States and Japan were arriving in Taiwan this morning, and Singapore, Switzerland and Russia were expected to send crews to provide assistance. A U.N. disaster assessment team was also awaited.

China too offered aid to the island, which it considers a renegade province. China’s Red Cross said it would provide $100,000 in disaster aid and $60,000 worth of relief supplies.

Much of Taiwan and this capital city were left without power for some or all of Tuesday after two key electricity plants in Nantou were damaged. Whole neighborhoods of Taipei remained eerily dark at nightfall Tuesday.

Nevertheless, the capital did not suffer extensive damage and was surprisingly bustling Tuesday, even though most corporations and schools had closed for the day. The many lanes of the city’s wide boulevards swarmed with cars and taxis. The international airport was busy, and several restaurants were open for dinner.

But there were a few brutal reminders in Taipei of the quake’s ruinous effect. Hundreds of spectators held back by barricades tried to get a peek Tuesday night at a 12-story building whose first eight floors had collapsed like a folding tent during the 1:47 a.m. quake, leaving the top floors tilted. More than 30 people were believed to be still trapped in the smoldering wreckage late Tuesday.

About 138 people had been rescued from the building earlier in the day, most of them from the top two floors, which contained the Sungshan Hotel. A bank took up the first two floors of the building; the rest housed apartment units, said police officer Wu Huang-ming.

Construction equipment continued to pick away at the surface of the building late Tuesday, while firefighters tried to douse a fire in the rubble and for the most part kept rescuers at bay.

The longer the wait, the more hope faded that survivors would be found in the crushed building. The last survivor, a man, had been pulled out of the wreckage six hours earlier. Two women and a man found three hours after him were dead.

There were hundreds of collapsed buildings in Nantou and nearby Taichung counties. As of late Tuesday evening, 543 people had died in Nantou County, 1,055 were injured, and 1,394 buildings had been damaged. The injured were being treated in a stadium. About 101 people remained trapped, and 119 were still missing.

In more-industrialized Taichung County, 858 people had died, and 1,291 were injured. An estimated 763 people remained trapped.

Tuesday’s quake began with a slow rocking that became increasingly violent, said several Taipei residents.

“It felt like I was rocking on a boat,” said Taipei convenience store manager Chen Hsu-wen.

Taipei taxi driver Len Kuang-deng, who was taking a customer home, said he suddenly couldn’t control the steering wheel very well and thought that his tires had blown. But when he stopped, he felt wobbling and knew that there must be an earthquake.

Then, he said, people began to run out of their houses and into the street. Hundreds assembled in parks and at the huge open lawn of the Chiang Kai-shek memorial.

While Taiwan often feels slight tremors, most are centered far out at sea and do little or no harm.

Said Len: “Nobody in Taiwan had ever felt anything like this before.”

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Associated Press contributed to this report.

Updates and additional photos related to the Taiwan earthquake are available on The Times’ Web site: http://arstechnica.netblogpro.com

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* ECONOMIC AFTERMATH

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