Death toll from Taiwan earthquake nears 2,100

Taipei (dpa) - Hope was fading by the hour Thursday for additional earthquake survivors in Taiwan, three days after the island's most powerful tremor this century killed at least 2,094 people.

The Taiwanese flag was flown at half-mast for the victims while rescuers continued their grim task of digging through rubble to find alive some of the estimated 2,300 people still believed trapped.

Taipei will lower its 1999 economic growth target by an unspecified amount because of the disaster, an official said.

Many residents in devastated central Taiwan again spent the night in parks, school playgrounds or inside their cars, too scared to return to their homes as aftershocks again rocked the island.

At least one such jolt registered 5.0 points on the Richter scale. Aftershocks on Wednesday reached 6.8, 6.2 and 6.0. There have been rumours of another quake of the magnitude of Tuesday's tremor.

Badly-damaged buildings were becoming further destabilized. Rescuers from Taiwan and many other countries risked their lives searching through the concrete and twisted metal.

By Thursday afternoon, the total number of injured was 7,626. The search was made more difficult because dozens of buildings above ten storeys high toppled floor-on-floor.

Parts of the mountainous Nantou County, the worst hit by the quake, could still not be reached as roads and bridges were damaged.

Twenty-five countries and organizations have sent rescue teams or offered aid. Some 300 foreign rescue experts were working hand-in-hand with Taiwan rescuers.

Seismologists warned aftershocks would continue for another month, but without reaching the strength of Tuesday's quake, which measured 7.6 and was the most intense in Taiwan this century.

Electricity was restored to most residential users in northern and central Taiwan, on a rotation basis, after two nuclear power plants came back online. Supply to industrial users was still eratic.

Power providers were concerned warm weather would encourage residents to use more air-conditioning, stretching supplies.

The cabinet announced a three-day mourning period for the quake victims starting Thursday, asking all government units and enterprises to raise the national flag only to half-mast.

Several television stations have suspended entertainment programmes, broadcasting instead continuous earthquake reports.

The quake hit at 1:47 a.m. Tuesday at Jiji Township, Nantou County, 145 kilometres southwest of Taipei. It caused widespread damage because its epicentre was only one kilometre below ground.

On the catastrophe's economic effects, Chang Yao-tzung, head of the Economics Ministry's statistics department, said: ''We will probably have to revise downward our economic growth forecast, at least we won't revise it upward.''

Taiwan's 1999 target was 5.7 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth after GDP growth last year of 4.7 per cent.

Chang said the quake will have a mixed effect on Taiwan's economy. ''It will hurt the manufacturing industry but will stimulate the production of iron, steel and cement, which will be badly needed for reconstruction,'' he said.

He dismissed fears the earthquake badly harmed Taiwan's information industry. ''Our hi-tech industry is globalized. That is we receive orders but have the components made abroad.''

dpa dme ch fz

Copyright (c) 1999 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 09/23/1999 02:40:12