9.15am: Number of missing rises to 80 people
The official number of people missing in the quake has risen to 80, Taiwan’s Central Emergency Operation Center has reported.
The majority of these are believed to be trapped in the Marshal Hotel, the Yun Men Tsui Ti residential building, and two other residential towers which partially collapsed during the earthquake.
Some of the 243 people injured are said to be hurt “significantly”.
9.10am: Search rescue teams search for survivors in rubble
Taiwanese rescuers are combing through the buildings looking for survivors following yesterday’s deadly earthquake which has left scores of people injured.
At the city’s Marshal Hotel, rescuers tried to free two Taiwanese pulled out one alive, but the other person was declared dead, the government said.
Among the injured were mainland Chinese, Czech, Japanese, Singaporean and South Korean nationals.
Around 40,000 homes were left without water and 1,900 without power although water had returned to nearly 5,000 homes by noon (0400 GMT), while power was restored to around 1,700 households.
8.50am: Powerful earthquakes continue to rock city
A series of significant earthquakes have been shuddering through the Hualian capita in recent hours, interrupting rescue efforts.
The most recent quake, measuring 4.8 on the richter scale, was located 15km north-east of Hulien at 3.36am GMT today (11.36am local time).
A total of five earthquakes 5.0 magnitude or above have rocked the area since the initial earthquake.
The largest of these was a 5.4 magnitude earthquake at 7.15pm GMT (3.15am local time).