A Greek man who has not been named, saved 10 hikers from a cave after the recent Taiwan earthquake, according to a report in Taiwan News.
The report says that the Greek man was the son-in-law of former Taiwan ambassador to New Zealand, Tsai Erh-huang. He was hiking on the trail with his family when the earthquake struck on April 3.
Greek man helps hikers after Taiwan earthquake
A Taipei pastor surnamed Chou said he heard news of the trapped hikers and the Greek man who led people to safety. The Greek man had rescue experience and could set up lead ropes to help hikers pass through trail sections piled with rocks.
According to an eyewitness, the Greek individual first helped rescue people from a viewing platform. Later, he went into the cave and assisted a man who had difficulty walking due to an injury.
On April 3, he returned to Baiyang Trail and brought five more people to safety. The individuals were brought to Silks Place Taroko and airlifted from the area.
The people he had helped rescue expressed their gratitude by hugging him, and some shed tears, the report notes.
Hundreds remain stranded
On Saturday more than 600 people remained stranded in various locations, three days after the island’s strongest earthquake in 25 years.
Four people remain missing on the same Shakadang Trail in Taroko national park, famed for its rugged mountainous terrain. Search and recovery work was set to resume after being called off on Friday afternoon because of aftershocks.
At least 12 people were killed by the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck on Wednesday morning off Taiwan’s east coast, and 10 others were still missing.
More than 600 people – including about 450 at a hotel in the Taroko park – remained stranded, cut off by rockslides and other damage in different areas. However, many were known to be safe as rescuers deployed helicopters, drones and smaller teams with dogs to reach them.
On Friday, rescuers freed nine people trapped in a winding cave popular with tourists called the Tunnel of Nine Turns in the island’s mountainous east, while locating two others who were feared dead.
“I kept praying and praying,” said a woman evacuated from the cave, adding that the earthquake had sounded like “a bomb”.
Among the four missing on Shakadang Trail were a family of five. The two bodies found on Friday were a man and a woman but they had not yet been identified, according to Taiwanese media reports.
In the city of Hualien, authorities allowed residents to enter a building with a crumbling facade in 15-minute intervals so they could retrieve their belongings.