8-Year-Old, 3 Others Rescued 2 Days After Taiwan Quake

Two days after a powerful earthquake shook southern Taiwan, at least four more survivors have been pulled from the rubble of a collapsed 17-story apartment building in Tainan, the AP reports. A woman who called out "Here I am!" was found under the body of her husband, while rescuers also discovered a 42-year-old man and a 28-year-old Vietnamese woman. An 8-year-old girl was also pulled to safety. "She is awake, but looks dehydrated, lost some temperature," the Tainan mayor says. "I asked her if there's anything wrong with her body. She shook her head." The death toll is currently hovering at just under 40, but more than 100 people are still missing, per Reuters. So far, at least 170 survivors have been pulled from the wreckage of the building, which the Miami Herald says "folded like an accordion" during the 6.4-magnitude temblor.

A rescuer tells the paper that "it takes a few hours to complete a search for just one household and sometimes it takes two hours just to go forward … 12 inches." Not many buildings were damaged in the quake, mainly because Taiwan holds high building standards. The government says it will investigate whether this building's construction was subpar, with both the outgoing and incoming Taiwanese presidents noting more work needs to be done to ensure building safety, per Reuters. Suspicions about this particular building were heightened by witnesses who say they spotted big commercial cans of cooking oil shoved into wall cavities as makeshift building materials. "I told my son not to buy an apartment here; it was suspiciously cheap," a man who's trying to help rescuers find his young grandsons tells the Herald. (More Taiwan stories.)