SINGAPORE: When Ms Namrata Kohli heard that a Singaporean couple was missing at Taroko National Park amid a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in Taiwan, her first thought was that it could have easily been her and her husband.
“It could have been us, I don’t know how it wasn’t us,” said the 39-year-old Employment Pass holder who has worked in Singapore for over six years at tech firm Meta.
“I still hope and pray that they are brought out safely.”
The news of the missing couple shook Ms Namrata as she and her husband were stuck in a tunnel at the same national park for 24 hours, caught in the middle of Taiwan’s worst earthquake in 25 years last Wednesday (Apr 3).
The couple had travelled to Taiwan on Mar 29 for what was supposed to be a 12-day trip. They visited the Shakadang Trail at the national park the day before the earthquake, which was where the Singaporean couple was last seen.
On the day of the quake, Ms Namrata and her husband had driven from Hualien City to the Tunnel of Nine Turns at the park, to hike another trail there.
They parked the car at the tunnel and set off on the short trail through the mountainous terrain. It was on the way back from the trail, at about 8am, that the ground started to shake.
“As the vibration started to gain momentum both of us just ran,” she said. “We both started to run as fast as we could, but then the rocks started to fall as well.”
One of the rocks hit her husband in the face, injuring his ear and cheek. They sought shelter in a small cave-like structure as rocks fell around them, and she could feel small rocks pelt her ankles and knees.
When the tremors subsided, they saw they were almost at the end of the trail, and so walked about 100m to their car parked in the tunnel.
Shaken but safely in the car, they assumed the next step would be to drive out of the national park and back to Hualien City, but they could not have been more wrong.
Source: CNA
