Three rescued two days after Taiwan quake

BEIJING - At least three people, including an 8-year-old girl, have been rescued Monday from a high-rise apartment building toppled by a powerful quake on Saturday.

The girl, who lived on the fifth floor of the toppled Wei Guan building, was dehydrated but conscious when rescued and has been taken to hospital for treatment.

Rescuers are now trying to free another survivor they found on the same floor, a 28-year-old Vietnamese woman whose body is still partly trapped in the rubble. The work could take up to an hour.

If successful, she will be the fourth survivor freed Monday -- the first day of the Year of the Monkey according to the traditional Chinese lunar calendar -- by rescuers who are racing against time in the search for those still living.

Earlier in the day, a man named Li Tsung-tian was pull out alive conscious after being trapped for some 56 hours. He was rushed to hospital for treatment but may have to undergo amputation for injuries on the left leg.

Before that, rescuers saved a woman who was partly shielded by her dead husband, on the seventh floor of the Wei Guan building.

So far, Saturday's 6.7-magnitude earthquake, which struck just two days ahead of the traditional Chinese New Year, has killed at least 38 people, all but two of them in the collapse of the 16-story residential complex.

More than 100 people are believed to still be under the debris, stoking fears that the eventual toll could top 100 as the likelihood of survivors ticks away.

Rescuers are still scrambling through the wreckage to search for survivors. So far they have been able to confirm signs of life on the top floor of the building, and will begin rescue work after the Vietnamese woman has been saved.

Taiwan is frequently rattled by earthquakes. Most cause little or no damage, although a 7.3-magnitude quake, the strongest to hit Taiwan in about 100 years, left more than 2,000 people dead in 1999.