- Title: PERSONAL: Family revisits home damaged in massive Taiwan earthquake
- Date: 4th April 2024
- Summary: HUALIEN, TAIWAN (APRIL 4, 2024) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF BUILDING HOUSING CHEN FAMILY'S APARTMENT 48-YEAR-OLD HOUSEWIFE, LINDA CHEN (YELLOW SHIRT) WALKING INTO DAMAGED APARTMENT, SOCIAL WORKER FROM LOCAL CHURCH GROUP (GREEN VEST) TAKING PICTURES CHEN FAMILY AND CHURCH WORKER IN LIVING ROOM LARGE CRACK SPLITTING WALL DEBRIS ON FLOOR 49-YEAR-OLD POLICEMAN, CHEN CHIN-MING (RED S
- Embargoed: 18th April 2024 07:23
- Keywords: Hualien Taiwan damage destruction earthquake family home
- Location: HUALIEN, TAIWAN
- City: HUALIEN, TAIWAN
- Country: Taiwan
- Topics: Asia / Pacific,Disaster/Accidents,Earthquakes/Volcanoes/Tsunami,Editors' Choice
- Reuters ID: LVA001265904042024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Linda Chen looks wistfully around her apartment in the eastern Taiwanese city of Hualien, which her family believes is now too dangerous to live in following a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck on Wednesday (April 3).
With wall cracks big enough to see into other rooms, Chen is now having to look for a new place to live for her family, the second time that an earthquake has forced them to move after a 6.4 quake severely damaged their previous apartment in 2018.
Trying to sort through the mess on Thursday (April 4) hours after the latest temblor, Chen, 48, said she came across marks on the wall recording her son growing up as he got taller.
"I saw how this spot was damaged and felt really sad. I was thinking how the house could turn into something like this and that the memories seemed to be destroyed all of a sudden," she said.
"And when my son saw it, he said, ‘Mum, you see this spot was destroyed'. I really felt helpless. That is, how could something like this happen?"
The earthquake killed only nine people, and while most of Hualien, also the name of the county which is a popular tourist destination for its mountains and bucolic rural scenes, was spared major damage, Chen's apartment was not so lucky.
Her husband, Chen Chin-ming, a policeman, said he felt a sense of personal failure
"I wanted to protect the family because of I'm a husband, but instead, the home turned into this, I feel sad and stressed. I did not provide my family with a safe place to live," said Chen, 49.
"There is a lot of pressure in my heart in this situation, and I am afraid that my son and wives will have to live in a place of fear."
Their son, high school student Chen Le-chi, said he didn't dare spend too long inside his old house.
"It feels like it's about to fall after the next quake, and the walls are all cracked. Too outrageous, too serious," he said, while eating at the canteen of a shelter provided by a local church group, where the Chen family is staying in the interim.
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