An earthquake struck on Tuesday in Taiwan. It occurred on the eastern cost of Taiwan– the county of  Hualien; killing at least 12 people and left around two hundred injured or missing.

The earthquake caused a number of buildings to tilt to a 40 degree angle–an extremely dangerous position. A neighboring resident says that “I saw the first floor sink into the ground…the fourth floor became the first floor.” Another one emphasizes that “Everything fell down my bed was completely vertical, I was sleeping and
suddenly I was standing.” The sheer force of the earthquake split roads and destroyed electricity and water lines to over thousands of homes. A distraught construction worker says “This is the worst earthquake in the history of Hualien, or at least over the past 40 years I’ve been alive.” The tremor has caught Taiwan in surprise as citizens of Taiwan claim that “the earthquake happened so suddenly, usually we receive many small earthquakes, but this scaled quickly.” Rich Wang, a senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, adds on that “this is horrible, I hope my relatives are safe.”

Rescue teams from Japan were deployed in order to search for missing people under the debris. They are searching and scouting for the missing people by using a sensor that can detect heartbeats up to 15 meters away.

“This was the worst earthquake I’ve ever experienced in over 40 years” a citizen says in an interview. And it isn’t over, citizens of Taiwan are expecting aftershocks for the next  couple of weeks. Recently, there was a 6.1 magnitude earthquake that just struck recently due to the nature of aftershocks.