The tremor measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale shook the area between Hualian and Nantou at 0752 hrs (0522 IST), Xinhua news agency quoting China's seismological network said.

Sunday's quake killed four people and injured 15 others, reports coming in said. The shockwave causing landslide killed two people, a man and a woman, on a road linking Nantou county with Yunlin county to the south, local radio said while two more deaths were reported from other towns in Nantou.

The quake, which originated close to the epicentre of Tuesday's quake, brought down several buildings, the radio added. It also left numerous landslides across the country and forced the suspension of ongoing rescue and reconstruction operations. Local television showed a 12-storey damaged apartment block collapsedon a road in Nantou city and a neigbouring building in flames. It was not known whether anyone was inside. The 40 flats were evacuated after last Tuesday's quake measuring 7.6 on Richter scale.

Meanwhile, a formal decree granting the government emergency powers for six months to help thousands of people living in open space was issued by Taiwan's President Lee Teng-Hui.

Trapped, they survived on rotten apples, urine

TAIPEI: Rescuers on Sunday pulled out two brothers alive from a 12-storey building in downtown Taipei that had collapsed in the first quake which rocked Taiwan on Tuesday. The two brothers, Sun Chi-Kwang (20) and Sun Chi-Feng, survived their 130-hour ordeal by drinking their own urine, eating rotten apples and keeping each other's morale, doctors said.

"I would say this was a miracle," admitted Kuo Jung-An, director of the Military Sunshan Hospital. Besides dehydration, smoke inhalation and lower than normal body temperatures and blood pressure, the pair were unharmed.

SunChi-Kuang apparently dug his way towards light made by approaching rescuers and crawled out to announce his presence. His brother was pulled out shortly afterwards.According to doctors, the pair at first lived on three bottles of mineral water and four rotten apples stored in a refrigerator buried with them in the ruins of their Taipei flat.

Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-Jeou said the pair said they also drank their own urine. "The patients said they began to drink water seeping into the rubble after they finished drinking the mineral water," Kuo said, referring to water sprayed by firemen to extinguish fires in the collapsed building.