Taipei, Taiwan: Fearing people may be trapped inside, rescue workers and search dogs probed the perimeter of a multistory building leaning precariously early Thursday in the Taiwanese city of Hualien more than a day after a deadly earthquake.

 

The magnitude 6.4 quake struck late Tuesday 22 kilometers (13 miles) north of the city, killing at least eight people and injuring 262 others, authorities said. It also damaged bridges and buckled roads in and around Hualien, a city on the island's northeastern shores.
 

Dozens of people were unaccounted for by Thursday morning in Hualien, many of whom were believed to have been living or temporarily staying at the now badly damaged and tilting Yun Men Tsui Ti building, officials said.

 

Emergency workers used enormous beams, raised with a crane, to prop up the building -- a large residential and commercial complex -- which leaned ominously over the street below.

Rescuers were digging "nonstop on the backside of the building" to try to find people feared trapped on the lower floors, Hualien County fire commander Zhu Zhe-min said. No one is any longer believed trapped above the second floor, he said.

Forty-seven people connected in some way to the Yun Men Tsui Ti building were unaccounted for early Thursday, according to officials. They included:

• Ten people who'd been staying at a bed-and-breakfast called the Beauty Inn inside the building.

• An additional 37 residents registered in the building.

It's not clear how many of the 48 were in the building when the quake struck.

Melinda Yu, a resident of the fifth floor on the now-listing side, said she was marknig her 50th birthday in her apartment when the quake struck. The floors below her seemed to collapse, and when the dust had cleared, she said, she looked out a broken window and found she essentially was on the ground floor.

"Someone was waiting for me outside, (saying), 'Give me your hand,' and pulled me out," she said.

One of her neighbors is missing, she said early Thursday.