'Everything is still moving' Shock and grief grip Taiwan after quake

Lying in his bed, Liao Xiu Bo wondered if he was about to die. As a powerful earthquake rocked the ground beneath him, he tried to escape his house. "Am I going to be crushed?" he asked himself, before gathering the courage to run down the stairs, which swayed beneath his feet.

- Jan Camenzind Broomby,  Kenza Wilks 

Outside, he could see that the wall surrounding his house had collapsed, its bricks scattered across the road. "That's when I realised how extreme the earthquake was." Liao's house in Hualien, a popular tourist city on the east coast of Taiwan, was just a few miles away from the epicentre of the quake, which struck on Wednesday morning with a magnitude of 7.2, and has left more 1,000 people injured and at least 10 dead.

Yesterday rescuers were still looking for 18 missing people.

"For people in Hualien, earthquakes are a part of everyday life," Liao said. "But this earthquake was different from the others." And worse was to come. As Liao assessed the damage to his home, he saw on the news that the Uranus building, only a few blocks away, had partially collapsed.

His thoughts immediately went to his friend and longtime customer at his bar, who he knew lived in the building.