Taiwan earthquake death toll reaches 12

Rescuers in Taiwan faced the threat of further landslides and rockfalls in their search on Friday for a dozen people still missing from this week's earthquake, as the death toll rose to 12, Reuters reports.

Searchers discovered two more bodies after Wednesday's quake of magnitude 7.2 struck the sparsely populated, largely rural eastern county of Hualien.

As some 50 aftershocks rattled the area overnight, some felt as far away as Taipei, rescuers said about 400 people cut off in a luxury hotel in the Taroko Gorge national park were safe, with helicopters ferrying out the injured and bringing supplies.

Taiwan's fire department said two bodies were found in the mountains, but did not immediately update the death toll. It put the number of missing at 18, three of them foreigners of Australian and Canadian nationality, according to Reuters.

Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is prone to earthquakes. More than 100 people were killed in a 2016 quake in its south, while one of magnitude 7.3 killed more than 2,000 in 1999.