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Authority indicts three over deadly quake building collapse

The building's architect and a civil engineer were also charged with causing death and injury by professional negligence, punishable by a maximum five-year jail term.

The lower floors of the 12-storey Yun Tsui residential building -- which also housed a restaurant and hotel -- pancaked when a 6.4-magnitude quake struck the tourist hotspot of Hualien on February 6.

A total of 17 people died across the eastern coastal town, 14 of them in the Yun Tsui building.

Developer Liu Ying-lin was unlicensed and did not have the necessary engineering qualifications but oversaw the building's construction instead of contracting a professional firm, said Hualien District Prosecutors Office.

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"Yun Tsui building collapsed within eight seconds of the earthquake... due to serious flaws in design, supervision and construction," said Wang Yi-jen, a spokesman for the office.

The flaws included inadequate pillars and reinforcing steel that significantly weakened the building's seismic capacity, he added.

Despite its comparative wealth and a reputation for cutting-edge technology, Taiwan still often sees deadly building collapses during quakes.

The Hualien quake came exactly two years to the day after a similar sized tremor struck the western city of Tainan, killing 117 people -- most in a single apartment block which tumbled.

Five people were later found guilty over the disaster, including the developer and two architects, for building an inadequate structure.

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The island's worst tremor in recent decades was a 7.6-magnitude quake in September 1999 that killed around 2,400 people.

That quake ushered in stricter building codes but many of Taiwan's older buildings remain perilously vulnerable to even moderate quakes.

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