"Really seasick"

Wiener: “I rocked back and forth in bed”

Basketball coach Raoul Korner witnessed the earthquake in Taiwan.(Bild: APA/Barbara Gindl, APA/AFP, Krone KREATIV)

Following the violent earthquake off the east coast of Taiwan, the death toll has risen to seven and the number of injured to more than 700 (see video above). One person who experienced the earthquake is Raoul Korner from Vienna. You can get "really seasick", he said. 

He was "at home on the 24th floor" and "rocked back and forth in bed". Korner has been working as a basketball coach for the Tainan Ghosthawks since the end of January and turned 50 on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning (local time), he received a warning on his cell phone, and a minute later it had already "started." A video shows a lamp in his apartment shaking violently. As he had "no large decorations", nothing could have fallen down.

Here you can see the video of Raoul Korner.

"For a Viennese, being woken up by an earthquake in the morning is (fortunately) not an everyday occurrence," he wrote on Platform X. In Tainan, the sixth largest city in the southwest of the country, the quake reached magnitude 5. To Korner's knowledge, no buildings were damaged. In other areas of Thailand, however, people were killed, at least nine in total. At least 820 other people were injured.

Basketball coach Raoul Korner(Bild: APA/Barbara Gindl, APA/AFP, Krone KREATIV)

Rockfall in Taichung(Bild: AFP)

House in Taipei(Bild: AFP)

Destroyed building in Hualien(Bild: AFP)

Many trapped in buildings
According to the national fire department, 127 people were still trapped in buildings in the city of Hualien, including two German citizens in a tunnel. Many houses collapsed completely, became dangerously tilted or were destroyed. The Taiwanese weather authority registered a magnitude of 7.2 at a depth of a few kilometers. The US earthquake observatory and Geosphere Austria recorded 7.4, followed by several aftershocks.

The quake struck at around 8 a.m. local time, just as many people were making their way to work or school. "It was the worst earthquake I have ever experienced," said the manager of a guesthouse in the city of Hualien.

EU announces help
Taiwan, China, Japan and the Philippines warned of tsunamis for several hours before the warnings were eased or lifted. According to the Foreign Ministry in Vienna, there are no indications that Austrians are among the dead or injured. The EU has already announced its support.