Taiwan on Saturday called off all search-and-rescue operations for any affected by the magnitude 6.4 earthquake after all the missing were accounted for, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported.
City officials report that the last person was rescued alive on Saturday afternoon, according to CNN. In total, 289 people have been rescued, 96 of whom remain in the hospital for a variety of injuries or causes.
The Feb. 6 earthquake claimed the lives of 116 people, and all but two of them had been residents of the 16-story Wei-kuan complex in the southern city of Tainan. The incident had been treated as a tragedy caused by purely natural causes at first, but questions surrounding the incident soon began to mount after many noticed that the Wei-kuan building had been the only one to collapse despite there being older buildings in the immediate area.
"There are so many other older buildings in Tainan that are still standing. Why was it only this building that was completely destroyed?" asked Wang Xingyou, a city cab driver.
These questions, however, were soon replaced with fury after rescuers found foam and tin cans that had been used as filling in concrete structures.
Following the discovery, officials launched an investigation and found several flaws in the building, including inadequate steel reinforcement bars. In light of the discovery, three people, the developer of the building and two other men associated with the structure, were arrested Tuesday, reported the Voice of America. They face charges of professional negligence resulting in death.
"The developer really had no conscience constructing such a building. He should be severely punished," Liu Kun-min, whose brother, sister-in-law and two sons were killed in the quake, told the Apple Daily newspaper, according to the AFP.
Taiwan, with more than 50 fault lines passing through the island, is highly prone to earthquakes. Though this incident can also be blamed on human greed and negligence, the damage and death toll still falls short of the magnitude 7.7 quake from September 1999 that killed thousands - one of the strongest to hit hit Taiwan during the 20th century.
